rMlINCE 

CHRISTOPHER 
^MORLEY<-» 


University  of  California  •  Berkeley 
From  the  Library  of 
Edward  W.    Strong 


y^M^UA.'<l^^^^  J^(h<^^^-Qjt/^, 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Arcinive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/adventurmincepieOOmorlrich 


MINCE  PIE 


CmUSTOFHER  MORLEY 


MINCE     PIE 

ADVENTURES  ON  THE 
SUNNY  SIDE  OF  GRUB  STREET 


BY 
CHRISTOPHER  MORLEY 

ILLUSTRATED  BY 

WALTER  JACK  DUNCAN 


NEW  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  D0RAN  COMPANY 


COPYKIQHT,   1919, 
BY   GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


PRINTED  IN  THE   UNITED  STATES  OF   AMERICA 


TO 
F.  M.  AND  L.  J.  M. 


INSTRUCTIONS 

This  book  is  intended  to  be  read  in  bed. 
Please  do  not  attempt  to  read  it  anywhere  else. 

In  order  to  obtain  the  best  results  for  all  con- 
cerned do  not  read  a  borrowed  copy,  but  buy 
one.     If  the  bed  is  a  double  bed,  buy  two. 

Do  not  lend  a  copy  under  any  circumstances, 
but  refer  your  friends  to  the  nearest  bookshop, 
where  they  may  expiate  their  curiosity. 

Most  of  these  sketches  were  first  printed  in 
the  Philadelphia  Evening  Public  Ledger;  oth- 
ers appeared  in  The  Bookman,  the  Boston 
Evening  Transcript,  Life,  and  The  Smart  Set. 
To  all  these  publications  I  am  indebted  for  per- 
mission to  reprint. 

If  one  asks  what  excuse  there  can  be  for  pro- 
longing the  existence  of  these  trifles,  my  an- 
swer is  that  there  is  no  excuse.    But  a  copy  on 

[vii] 


Instructions 

the  bedside  sBelf  may  possibly  pave  the  way  to 
easy  slumber.  Only  a  mind  "debauched  by 
learning"  (in  Doctor  Johnson's  phrase)  will 
scrutinize  them  too  anxiously. 

It  seems  to  me,  on  reading  the  proofs,  that 
the  skit  entitled  "Trials  of  a  President  Travel- 
ling Abroad"  is  a  faint  and  subconscious  echo  of 
a  passage  in  a  favorite  of  my  early  youth,  Happy 
Thoughts,  by  the  late  F.  C.  Burnand.  If  this 
acknowledgment  should  move  anyone  to  read 
that  delicious  classic  of  pleasantry,  the  innocent 
plunder  may  be  pardonable. 

And  now  a  word  of  obeisance.  I  take  this 
opportunity  of  thanking  several  gentle  over- 
seers and  magistrates  who  have  been  too  gen- 
erously friendly  to  these  eccentric  gestures. 
These  are  Mr.  Robert  Cortes  Holliday,  editor 
of  The  Bookman  and  victim  of  the  novelette 
herein  entitled  "Owd  Bob";  Mr.  Edwin  F. 
Edgett,  literary  editor  of  The  Boston  Tran- 
script, who  has  often  permitted  me  to  cut  out- 
rageous capers  in  his  hospitable  columns;  and 
Mr.  Thomas  L.  Masson,  of  Life,  who  allows  me 
to  reprint  several  of  the  shorter  pieces.  But 
most  of  all  I  thank  Mr.  David  E.  Smiley,  editor 
[viii] 


Instructions 

of  the  Philadelphia  Evening  Public  Ledger,  for 
whom  the  majority  of  these  sketches  were  writ- 
ten^ and  whose  patience  and  kindness  have  been 
a  frequent  amazement  to 

THE  AUTHOR. 
Philadelphia 
September,  1919 


[ixl 


^     ■ 


ft,*"',  CONTENTS 

'       On  Filling  an  Ink-well     . 

Old  Thoughts  for  Christmas     . 

Christmas  Cards        .... 

On  Unanswerinq  Letters 

A  Letter  to  Father  Time  , 

What  Men  Live  By         .  .         , 

The  Unnatural  Naturalist 

Sitting  in  the  Barber's  Chaib  . 

Brown  Eyes  and  Equinoxes 

163  Innocent  Old  Men 

A  Tragic  Smell  in  Marathon  . 

Bullied  by  the  Birds 

A  Message  for  Boonvillb 

Makin    Marathon  Safe  for  the  Urchin 

The  ^mell  of  Smells 

A  Japanese  Bachelor 


page 
17 

24 

31 
35 
41 
48 
54 
60 
64 
69 
75 
81 
87 
92 
98 
102 


[Xi] 


Contents 


PAGE 

Two  Days  We  Cet.ebbate 

.     117 

The  Urchin  at  the  Zoo      . 

.     132 

Fellow  Craftsmen    . 

.     139 

The  Key  Ring   . 

.     144 

"OwdBob" 

.     150 

The  Apple  That  No  One  Ate 

.     167 

As  to  Rumors    .... 

.     174 

Our  Mothers     .        . 

.     181 

Greeting  to  American  Anglers 

.     186 

Mrs.  Izaak  Walton  Writes  a    Letter    to 

Her 

Mother           ...... 

.     190 

Truth 

.     193 

The  Tragedy  of  Washington  Square 

.     195 

If  Mr.  Wilson  Were  the  Weather  Man 

.     202 

Syntax  for  Cynics     ..... 

.     205 

The  Truth  at  Last 

.     209 

Fixed  Ideas        .         .         ,         .         .         . 

.     211 

Trials  of  a  President  Travelling  Abroad 

.     215 

Diary  of  a  Publisher's  Office  Boy    . 

.     217 

The  Dog's  Commandments 

.     219 

The  Value  of  Criticism     .... 

.     221 

A  Marriage  Service  for  Commuters    . 

.     224 

The  Sunny  Side  of  Grub  Street 

.     226 

Burial  Service  for  a  Newspaper  Joke 

.     236 

Advice  to  Those  Visiting  a  Baby 

.     238 

[xii] 

Contents 


PAGE 

Abou  Ben  Woodrow  ......  240 

My  Magnificent  System    .....  242 

Letters  to  Cynthia 

1  In  Praise  of  Boobs          ....  245 

2  Simplification 250 

To  AN  Unknown  Damsel 256 

Thoughts  ON  Setting  AN  Alarm  Clock          .         .  258 

Songs  in  a  Shower  Bath 259 

On  Dedicating  a  New  Teapot    .         ,         .         ,  261 

The  Unforgivable  Syntax          ....  263 

Visiting  Poets   .......  264 

A  Good  Home  in  the  Suburbs    ....  270 

Walt  Whitman  Miniatures        ....  272 

On  Doors 292 


[xiii] 


MINCE  PIE 


MINCE   PIE 


ON   FILLING   AN   INK-WELL 

THOSE  who  buy  their  ink  in  little  stone 
jugs  may  prefer  to  do  so  because  the 
pottle  reminds  them  of  cruiskeen  lawn  or  gin- 
ger beer  (with  its  wire-bound  cork),  but  they 
miss  a  noble  delight.  Ink  should  be  bought 
in  the  tall,  blue  glass,  quart  bottle  (with  the 
ingenious  non-drip  spout),  and  once  every  three 
weeks  or  so,  when  you  fill  your  ink-well,  it  is 
your  privilege  to  elevate  the  flask  against  the 
brightness  of  a  window,  and  meditate  (with  a 
breath  of  sadness)  on  the  joys  and  problems 
that  sacred  fluid  holds  in  solution. 

How  blue  it  shines  toward  the  light!  Blue 
as  lupin  or  larkspur,  or  cornflower — aye,  and 
even  so  blue  art  thou,  my  scriven,  to  think 
how  far  the  written  page  falls  short  of  the 
bright  ecstasy  of  thy  dream!  In  the  bottle, 
what  magnificence  of  unpenned  stuff"  lies  cool 
and  liquid:  what  fluency  of  essay,  what  fonts  of 
song.     As  the  bottle  glints,  blue  as  a  squill  or 

[17] 


Mince  Pie 

a  hyacinth,  blue  as  the  meadows  of  Elysium  or 
the  eyes  of  girls  loved  by  young  poets,  meseems 
the  racing  pen  might  almost  gain  upon  the 
thoughts  that  are  turning  the  bend  in  the  road. 
A  jolly  throng,  those  thoughts:  I  can  see  them 
talking  and  laughing  together.  But  when  pen 
reaches  the  road's  turning,  the  thoughts  are 
gone  far  ahead:  their  delicate  figures  are  sil- 
houettes against  the  sky. 

It  is  a  sacramental  matter,  this  filling  the 
ink-well.  Is  there  a  writer,  however  humble, 
who  has  not  poured  into  his  writing  pot,  with 
the  ink,  some  wistful  hopes  or  prayers  for  what 
may  emerge  from  that  dark  source?  Is  there 
not  some  particular  reverence  due  the  ink-well, 
some  form  of  propitiation  to  humbug  the  pow- 
ers of  evil  and  constraint  that  devil  the  jour- 
nalist? Satan  hovers  near  the  ink-pot.  Luther 
solved  the  matter  by  throwing  the  well  itself 
at  the  apparition.  That  savors  to  me  too  much 
of  homeopathy.  If  Satan  ever  puts  his  face 
over  my  desk,  I  shall  hurl  a  volume  of  Harold 
Bell  Wright  at  him. 

But  what  becomes  of  the  ink-pots  of  glory? 
The  conduit  from  which  Boswell  drew,  for 
Charles  Dilly  in  The  Poultry,  the  great  river 
of  his  Johnson?  The  well  (was  it  of  blue 
china?)  whence  flowed  Dream  Children:  a  Rev- 
eryf  (It  was  written  on  folio  ledger  sheets 
[18] 


On  Filling  an  Ink-well 

from  the  East  India  House — I  saw  the  manu- 
script only  yesterday  in  a  room  at  Daylesford, 
Pennsylvania,  where  much  of  the  richest  ink 
of  the  last  two  centuries  is  lovingly  laid  away.) 
The  pot  of  chuckling  fluid  where  Harry  Field- 
ing dipped  his  pen  to  tell  the  history  of  a  cer- 
tain foundling;  the  ink-wells  of  the  Cafe  de  la 


Source  on  the  Boul*  Mich* — do  they  by  any 
chance  remember  which  it  was  that  R.  L.  S. 
used?  One  of  the  happiest  tremors  of  my 
life  was  when  I  went  to  that  cafe  and  called 
for  a  bock  and  writing  material,  just  because 
B.  L.  S.  had  once  written  letters  there.  And 
the  ink-well  Poe  used  at  that  boarding-house 
in  Greenwich  Street,  New  York  (April,  1844), 
when  he  wrote  to  his  dear  Muddy  (his  mother- 
in-law)  to  describe  how  he  and  Virginia  had 
reached  a  haven  of  square  meals.  That  hopeful 
letter,  so  perfect  now  in  pathos — 

For  breakfast  we  had  excellent-flavored  coflfee,hot 
and   strong — ^not  very   clear  and   no   great   deal   of 

[19] 


Mince  Pie 

cream — ^veal  cutlets,  elegant  ham  and  eggs  and  nice 
bread  and  butter.  I  never  sat  down  to  a  more 
plentiful  or  a  nicer  breakfast.  I  wish  you  could 
have  seen  the  eggs — and  the  great  dishes  of  meat. 
Sis  [his  wife]  is  delighted,  and  we  are  both  in  ex- 
cellent spirits.  She  has  coughed  hardly  any  and  had 
no  night  sweat.  She  is  now  busy  mending  my  pants, 
which  I  tore  against  a  nail.  I  went  out  last  night 
and  bought  a  skein  of  silk,  a  skein  of  thread,  two 
buttons,  a  pair  of  slippers,  and  a  tin  pan  for  the 
stove.  The  fire  kept  in  all  night.  We  have  now  got 
four  dollars  and  a  half  left.  To-morrow  I  am  going 
to  try  and  borrow  three  dollars,  so  that  I  may  have  a 
fortnight  to  go  upon.  I  feel  in  excellent  spirits,  and 
haven't  drank  a  drop — so  that  I  hope  soon  to  get  out 
of  trouble. 

Yes,  let  us  clear  the  typewriter  off  the  table: 
an  ink-well  is  a  sacred  thing. 

Do  you  ever  stop  to  think,  when  you  see  the 
grimy  spattered  desks  of  a  public  post-oflSce, 
how  many  eager  or  puzzled  human  hearts  have 
tried,  in  those  dingy  little  ink-cups,  to  set 
themselves  right  with  fortune?  What  blissful 
meetings  have  been  appointed,  what  scribblings 
of  pain  and  sorrow,  out  of  those  founts  of  com- 
mon speech.  And  the  ink-wells  on  hotel  coun- 
ters— does  not  the  public  dipping  place  of  the 
Bellevue  Hotel,  Boston,  win  a  new  dignity  in 
my  memory  when  I  know  (as  I  learned  lately) 
that  Rupert  Brooke  registered  there  in  the 
[20] 


On  Filling  an  Ink-well 

spring  of  1914?  I  remember,  too,  a  certain 
pleasant  vibration  when,  signing  my  name  one 
day  in  the  Bellevue's  book,  I  found  Miss  Agnes 
Repplier's  autograph  a  little  above  on  the  same 
page. 

Among  our  younger  friends,  Vachel  Lind- 
say comes  to  mind  as  one  who  has  done  honor 
to  the  ink-well.  His  Apology  for  the  Bottle 
Volcanic  is  in  his  best  flow  of  secret  smiling 
(save  an  unfortunate  dilution  of  Riley) : 

Sometimes  I  dip  my  pen  and  find  the  bottle  full  of 

fire, 
The    salamanders    flying    forth    I    cannot    but    ad- 
mire. .  .  , 
O  sad  deceiving  ink,  as  bad  as  liquor  in  its  way — 
All  demons  of  a  bottle  size  have  pranced  from  you 

to-day. 
And  seized  my  pen  for  hobby-horse  as  witches  ride 

a  broom. 
And  left  a  trail  of  brimstone  words  and  blots  and 

gobs  of  gloom. 
And  yet  when   I   am  extra  good  .  .  .  [here  I  omit 

the  transfusion  of  Riley] 
My   bottle   spreads   a   rainbow  mist,   and   from   the 

vapor  fine 
Ten  thousand  troops  from  fairyland  come  riding  in 

a  line. 

I  suppose  it  is  the  mark  of  a  trifling  mind, 
yet  I  like  to  hear  of  the  little  particulars  that 
surrounded   those   whose   pens    struck    sparks. 

[21] 


Mince  Pie 

It  is  Boswell  that  leads  us  into  that  habit  of 
thought.  I  like  to  know  what  the  author  wore, 
how  he  sat,  what  the  furniture  of  his  desk  and 
chamber,  who  cooked  his  meals  for  him,  and 
with  what  appetite  he  approached  them.  "The 
mind  soars  by  an  effort  to  the  grand  and  lofty'* 
(so  dipped  Hazlitt  in  some  favored  ink-bottle) 
— "it  is  at  home  in  the  groveling,  the  disagree- 
able, and  the  little." 

I  like  to  think,  as  I  look  along  book  shelves, 
that  every  one  of  these  favorites  was  born 
out  of  an  ink-well.  I  imagine  the  hopes  and 
visions  that  thronged  the  author's  mind  as  he 
filled  his  pot  and  sliced  the  quill.  What  vari- 
ous fruits  have  flowed  from  those  ink-wells  of 
the  past:  for  some,  comfort  and  honor,  quiet 
homes  and  plenteousness ;  for  others,  bitterness 
and  disappointment.  I  have  seen  a  copy  of 
Poe's  poems,  published  in  1845  by  Putnam,  in- 
scribed by  the  author.  The  volume  had  been 
bought  for  $2,500.  Think  what  that  would 
have  meant  to  Poe  himself. 

Some  such  thoughts  as  these  twinkled  in  my 
head  as  I  held  up  the  Pierian  bottle  against 
the  light,  admired  the  deep  blue  of  it,  and  filled 
my  ink-well.  And  then  I  took  up  my  pen, 
which  wrote: 

A  GRACE  BEFORE  WRITING 


On  Filling  an  Ink-well 

This  is  a  sacrament,  I  think! 

Holding  the  bottle  toward  the  light. 
As  blue  as  lupin  gleams  the  ink: 

May  Truth  be  with  me  as  I  write! 

That  small  dark  cistern  may  afford 
Reunion  with  some  vanished  friend,— 

And  with  this  ink  I  have  just  poured 
May  none  but  honest  words  be  penned! 


r23i 


OLD  THOUGHTS  IFOR  CHRISTMAS 


ANEW  thought  for  Christmas?  Who  ever 
wanted  a  new  thought  for  Christmas? 
That  man  should  be  shot  who  would  try  to  brain 
one.  It  is  an  impertinence  even  to  write  about 
Christmas.  Christmas  is  a  matter  that  human- 
ity has  taken  so  deeply  to  heart  that  we  will 
not  have  our  festival  meddled  with  by  bungling 
hands.  No  efficiency  expert  would  dare  tell  us 
that  Christmas  is  inefficient;  that  the  clockwork 
toys  will  soon  be  broken;  that  no  one  can  eat 
a  peppermint  cane  a  yard  long;  that  the  curves 
on  our  chart  of  kindness  should  be  ironed  out 
so  that  the  "peak  load"  of  December  would  be 
evenly  distributed  through  the  year.  No  sour- 
[24] 


Old  Thoughts  for  Christmas 

face  dare  tell  us  that  we  drive  postmen  and 
shopgirls  into  Bolshevism  by  overtaxing  them 
with  our  frenzied  purchasing  or  that  it  is  ab- 
surd to  send  to  a  friend  in  a  steam-heated  apart- 
ment in  a  prohibition  republic  a  bright  little 
picture  card  of  a  gentleman  in  Georgian  cos- 
tume drinking  ale  by  a  roaring  fire  of  logs. 
None  in  his  senses,  I  say,  would  emit  such  soph- 
istries, for  Christmas  is  a  law  unto  itself  and 
is  not  conducted  by  card-index.  Even  the  post- 
men and  shopgirls,  severe  though  their  labors, 
would  not  have  matters  altered.  There  is  none 
of  us  who  does  not  enjoy  hardship  and  bustle 
that  contribute  to  the  happiness  of  others. 

There  is  an  efficiency  of  the  heart  that 
transcends  and  contradicts  that  of  the  head. 
Things  of  the  spirit  differ  from  things  mate- 
rial in  that  the  more  you  give  the  more  you 
have.  The  comedian  has  an  immensely  better 
time  than  the  audience.  To  modernize  the 
adage,  to  give  is  more  fun  than  to  receive.  Es- 
pecially if  you  have  wit  enough  to  give  to  those 
who  don't  expect  it.  Surprise  is  the  most  prim- 
itive joy  of  humanity.  Surprise  is  the  first  rea- 
son for  a  baby's  laughter.  And  at  Christmas 
time,  when  we  are  all  a  little  childish  I  hope, 
surprise  is  the  flavor  of  our  keenest  joys.  We 
all  remember  the  thrill  with  which  we  once 
heard,  behind  some  closed  door,  the  rustle  and 

[25] 


Mince  Pie 

crackle  of  paper  parcels  being  tied  up.  We 
knew  that  we  were  going  to  be  surprised — a 
delicious  refinement  and  luxuriant  seasoning  of 
the  emotion! 

Christmas,  then,  conforms  to  this  deeper  effi- 
ciency of  the  heart.  We  are  not  methodical  in 
kindness;  we  do  not  "fill  orders"  for  consign- 
ments of  affection.  We  let  our  kindness  ramble 
and  explore;  old  forgotten  friendships  pop  up 
in  our  minds  and  we  mail  a  card  to  Harry  Hunt, 
of  Minneapolis  (from  whom  we  have  not  heard 
for  half  a  dozen  years),  "just  to  surprise  him.** 
A  business  man  who  shipped  a  carload  of  goods 
to  a  customer,  just  to  surprise  him,  would  soon 
perish  of  abuse.  But  no  one  ever  refuses  a 
shipment  of  kindness,  because  no  one  ever  feels 
overstocked  with  it.  It  is  coin  of  the  realm, 
current  everywhere.  And  we  do  not  try  to 
measure  our  kindnesses  to  the  capacity  of  our 
friends.  Friendship  is  not  measurable  in  cal- 
ories. How  many  times  this  year  have  you 
"turned"  your  stock  of  kindness? 

It  is  the  gradual  approach  to  the  Great  Sur- 
prise that  lends  full  savor  to  the  experience. 
It  has  been  thought  by  some  that  Christmas 
would  gain  in  excitement  if  no  one  knew  when 
it  was  to  be;  if  (keeping  the  festival  within  the 
winter  months)  some  public  functionary  (say, 
Mr.  Burleson)  were  to  announce  some  unex- 
[26] 


Old  Thoughts  for  Christmas 

pected  morning,  "A  week  from  to-day  will  be 
Christmas!"  Then  what  a  scurrying  and  joy- 
ful frenzy — what  a  festooning  of  shops  and 
mad  purchasing  of  presents !  But  it  would  not 
be  half  the  fun  of  the  slow  approach  of  the 
familiar  date.  All  through  November  and  De- 
cember we  watch  it  drawing  nearer;  we  see  the 
shop  windows  begin  to  glow  with  red  and  green 
and  lively  colors;  we  note  the  altered  demeanor 
of  bellboys  and  janitors  as  the  Date  flows 
quietly  toward  us ;  we  pass  through  the  haggard 
perplexity  of  "Only  Four  Days  More"  when 
we  suddenly  realize  it  is  too  late  to  make  our 
shopping  the  display  of  lucid  affectionate  rea- 
soning we  had  contemplated,  and  clutch  wildly 
at  grotesque  tokens — and  then  (sweetest  of  all) 
comes  the  quiet  calmness  of  Christmas  Eve. 
Then,  while  we  decorate  the  tree  or  carry  par- 
cels of  tissue  paper  and  red  ribbon  to  a  care- 
fully prepared  list  of  aunts  and  godmothers,  or 
reckon  up  a  little  pile  of  bright  quarters  on  the 
dining-room  table  in  preparation  for  to-mor- 
row's largesse — ^then  it  is  that  the  brief,  poign- 
ant and  precious  sweetness  of  the  experience 
claims  us  at  the  full.  Then  we  can  see  that  all  our 
careful  wisdom  and  shrewdness  were  folly  and 
stupidity;  and  we  can  understand  the  meaning 
of  that  Great  Surprise — that  where  we  planned 
wealth  we  found  ourselves  poor;  that  where  we 


Mince  Pie 

thought  to  be  impoverished  we  were  enriched. 
The  world  is  built  upon  a  lovely  plan  if  we  take 
time  to  study  the  blue-prints  of  the  heart. 

Humanity  must  be  forgiven  much  for  having 
invented  Christmas.  What  does  it  matter  that 
a  great  poet  and  philosopher  urges  "the  aban- 
donment of  the  masculine  pronoun  in  allusions 
to  the  First  or  Fundamental  Energy"?  The- 
ology is  not  saddled  upon  pronouns;  the  best 
doctrine  is  but  three  words,  God  is  Love.  Love, 
or  kindness,  is  fundamental  energy  enough  to 
satisfy  any  brooder.  And  Christmas  Day  mean? 
the  birth  of  a  child;  that  is  to  say,  the  triumph 
of  life  and  hope  over  suffering. 

Just  for  a  few  hours  on  Christmas  Eve  and 
Christmas  Day  the  stupid,  harsh  mechanism 
of  the  world  runs  down  and  we  permit  our- 
selves to  live  according  to  untrammeled  com- 
mon sense,  the  unconquerable  efficiency  of  good 
will.  We  grant  ourselves  the  complete  and 
selfish  pleasure  of  loving  others  better  than  our- 
selves. How  odd  it  seems,  how  unnaturally 
happy  we  are !  We  feel  there  must  be  some 
mistake,  and  rather  yearn  for  the  familiar  fric- 
tions and  distresses.  Just  for  a  few  hours  we 
"purge  out  of  every  heart  the  lurking  grudge." 
We  know  then  that  hatred  is  a  form  of  illness; 
that  suspicion  and  pride  are  only  fear;  that  the 
rascally  acts  of  others  are  perhaps,  in  the  queer 
[28] 


Old  Thoughts  for  Christmas 

irebwork  of  human  relations,  due  to  some  cal- 
ousness  of  our  own.  Who  knows?  Some  man 
may  have  robbed  a  bank  in  Nashville  or  fired 
a  gun  in  Louvain  because  we  looked  so  intol- 
erably smug  in  Philadelphia! 

So  at  Christmas  we  tap  that  vast  reservoir 
of  wisdom  and  strength — call  it  efficiency  or  the 
fundamental  energy  if  you  will — Kindness. 
And  our  kindness,  thank  heaven,  is  not  the 
placid  kindness  of  angels;  it  is  veined  with 
human  blood;  it  is  full  of  absurdities,  irrita- 
tions, frustrations.  A  man  100  per  cent,  kind 
would  be  intolerable.  As  a  wise  teacher  said, 
the  milk  of  human  kindness  easily  curdles  into 
cheese.  We  like  our  friends*  affections  because 
ive  know  the  tincture  of  mortal  acid  is  in  them. 
We  remember  the  satirist  who  remarked  that  to 
love  one's  self  is  the  beginning  of  a  lifelong 
romance.  We  know  this  lifelong  romance  will 
resume  its  sway;  we  shall  lose  our  tempers,  be 
obstinate,  peevish  and  crank.  We  shall  fidget 
and  fume  while  waiting  our  turn  in  the  barber's 
chair;  we  shall  argue  and  muddle  and  mope. 
And  yet,  for  a  few  hours,  what  a  happy  vision 
that  was!  And  we  turn,  on  Christmas  Eve,  to 
pages  which  those  who  speak  our  tongue  immor- 
tally associate  with  the  season — the  pages  of 
Charles  Dickens.  Love  of  humanity  endures  as 
long  as  the  thing  it  loves,  and  those  pages  are 

[29] 


Mince  Pie 

packed  as  full  of  it  as  a  pound  cake  is  full  of 
fruit.  A  pound  cake  will  keep  moist  three 
years;  a  sponge  cake  is  dry  in  three  days. 

And  now  humanity  has  its  most  beautiful  and 
most  appropriate  Christmas  gift — Peace.  The 
Magi  of  Versailles  and  Washington  having  un- 
wound for  us  the  tissue  paper  and  red  ribbon 
(or  red  tape)  from  this  greatest  of  all  gifts, 
let  us  in  days  to  come  measure  up  to  what  has 
been  born  through  such  anguish  and  horror.  If 
war  is  illness  and  peace  is  health,  let  us  re- 
member also  that  health  is  not  merely  a  blessing 
to  be  received  intact  once  and  for  all.  It  is 
not  a  substance  but  a  condition,  to  be  main- 
tained only  by  sound  regime,  self-discipline  and 
simplicity.  Let  the  Wise  Men  not  be  too  wise; 
let  them  remember  those  other  Wise  Men  who, 
after  their  long  journey  and  their  sage  surmis- 
ings,  found  only  a  Child.  On  this  evening  it 
serves  us  nothing  to  pile  up  filing  cases  and 
rolltop  desks  toward  the  stars,  for  in  our  city 
square  the  Star  itself  has  fallen,  and  shines 
upon  the  Tree. 


[30] 


CHRISTMAS  CARDS 

BY  a  stroke  of  good  luck  we  found  a  little 
shop  where  a  large  overstock  of  Christmas 
cards  was  selling  at  two  for  five.  The  original 
5's  and  10*s  were  still  penciled  on  them^  and 
while  we  were  debating  whether  to  rub  them 
off  a  thought  occurred  to  us.  When  will  ar- 
tists and  printers  design  us  some  Christmas 
cards  that  will  be  honest  and  appropriate  to 
the  time  we  live  in?  Never  was  the  Day  of 
Peace  and  Good  Will  so  full  of  meaning  as  this 
year;  and  never  did  the  little  cards,  charming 
as  they  were,  seem  so  formal,  so  merely  pretty, 
so  devoid  of  imagination,  so  inadequate  to  the 
festival. 

This  is  an  age  of  strange  and  stirring  beauty, 
of  extraordinary  romance  and  adventure,  of  new 
joys  and  pains.  And  yet  our  Christmas  artists 
have  nothing  more  to  offer  us  than  the  old 
formalism  of  Yuletide  convention.  After  a 
ponsiderable  amount  of  searching  in  the  bazaars 
we  have  found  not  one  Christmas  card  that 
showed  even  a  glimmering  of  the  true  romance, 
which  is  to  see  the  beauty  or  wonder  or  peril 

[SI] 


Mince  Pie 

that  lies  around  us.  Most  of  the  cards  hark 
back  to  the  stage-coach  up  to  its  hubs  in  snow, 
or  the  blue  bird,  with  which  Maeterlinck  pen- 
alized us  (what  has  a  blue  bird  got  to  do  with 
Christmas?),  or  the  open  fireplace  and  jug  of 
mulled  claret.  Now  these  things  are  merry 
enough  in  their  way,  or  they  were  once  upon  a 
time;  but  we  plead  for  an  honest  romanticism 
in  Christmas  cards  that  will  express  something 
of  the  entrancing  color  and  circumstance  that 
surround  us  to-day.  Is  not  a  commuter's  train, 
stalled  in  a  drift,  far  more  lively  to  our  hearts 
than  the  mythical  stage-coach  .f*  Or  an  inter- 
urban  trolley  winging  its  way  through  the  dusk 
like  a  casket  of  golden  light?  Or  even  a  coun- 
try flivver,  loaded  down  with  parcels  and  holly 
and  the  Yuletide  keg  of  root  beer?  Root  beer 
may  be  but  meager  flaggonage  compared  to 
mulled  claret,  but  at  any  rate  'tis  honest,  'tis 
actual,  'tis  tangible  and  potable..  And  where, 
among  all  the  Christmas  cards,  is  the  airplane, 
that  most  marvelous  and  heart-seizing  of  all 
our  triumphs?  Where  is  the  stately  apartment 
house,  looming  like  Gibraltar  against  a  sunset 
sky  ?  Must  we,  even  at  Christmas  time,  fool  our- 
selves with  a  picturesqueness  that  is  gone,  seeing 
nothing  of  what  is  around  us? 

It  is  said  that  man's  material  achievements 
have   outrun  his   imagination;   that   poets   and 
[32] 


Christmas  Cards 

painters  are  too  puny  to  grapple  with  the  world 
as  it  is.  Certainly  a  visitor  from  another  sphere, 
looking  on  our  fantastic  and  exciting  civiliza- 
tion, wonld  find  little  reflection  of  it  in  the 
Christmas  card.  He  would  find  us  clinging  des- 
perately to  what  we  have  been  taught  to  believe 
was  picturesque  and  jolly,  and  afraid  to  assert 
that  the  things  of  to-day  are  comely  too.  Even 
on  the  basis  of  discomfort  (an  acknowledged 
criterion  of  picturesqueness)  surely  a  trolley 
car  jammed  with  parcel-laden  passengers  is  just 
as  satisfying  a  spectacle  as  any  stage  coach? 
Surely  the  steam  radiator,  if  not  so  lovely  as  a 
flame-gilded  hearth,  is  more  real  to  most  of  us  ? 
And  instead  of  the  customary  picture  of  shiver- 
ing subjects  of  George  III  held  up  by  a  high- 
wayman on  Hampstead  Heath,  why  not  a  deftly 
delineated  sketch  of  victims  in  a  steam-heated 
lobby  submitting  to  the  plunder  of  the  hat-check 
bandit  ?  Come,  let  us  be  honest !  The  romance 
of  to-day  is  as  good  as  any ! 

Many  must  have  felt  this  same  uneasiness  in 
trying  to  find  Christmas  cards  that  would  really 
say  something  of  what  is  in  their  hearts.  The 
sentiment  behind  the  card  is  as  lovely  and  as 
true  as  ever,  but  the  cards  themselves  are  out- 
moded bottles  for  the  new  wine.  It  seems  a 
cruel  thing  to  say,  but  we  are  impatient  with 
the  mottoes  and  pictures  we  see  in  the  shops 

[SS] 


Mince  Pie 

because  they  are  a  conventional  echo  of  a  beauty 
that  is  past.  What  could  be  more  absurd  than 
to  send  to  a  friend  in  a  city  apartment  a  rhyme 
such  as  this: 

As  round  the  Christmas  fire  you  sit 
And  hear  the  bells  with  frosty  chime, 

Think,  friendship  that  long  love  has  knit 
Grows  sweeter  still  at  Christmas  time! 

If  that  is  sent  to  the  janitor  or  the  elevator 
boy  we  have  no  ^  cavil,  for  these  gentlemen  do 
actually  see  a  fire  and  hear  bells  ring;  but  the 
apartment  tenant  hears  naught  but  the  hissing 
of  the  steam  in  the  radiator,  and  counts  himself 
lucky  to  hear  that.  Why  not  be  honest  and  say 
to  him: 

I  hope  the  janitor  has  shipped 
You  steam,  to  keep  the  cold  away; 

And  if  the  hallboys  have  been  tipped. 
Then  joy  be  thine  on  Christmas  Day! 

We  tad  not  meant  to  introduce  this  jocular 
note  into  our  meditation,  for  we  are  honestly 
aggrieved  that  so  many  of  the  Christmas  cards 
hark  back  to  an  old  tradition  that  is  gone,  and 
never  attempt  to  express  any  of  the  romance  of 
to-day.  You  may  protest  that  Christmas  is  the 
oldest  thing  in  the  world,  which  is  true;  yet  it 
is  also  new  every  year,  and  never  newer  than 
now. 

[84] 


ON  UNANSWERING  LETTERS 


THERE  are  a  great  many  people  who  really^ 
believe  in  answering  letters  the  day  they^ 
are  received,  just  as  there  are  people  who  go 
to  the  movies  at  9  o'clock  in  the  morning;  but 
these  people  are  stunted  and  queer. 

It  is  a  great  mistake.  Such  crass  and  breath- 
less promptness  takes  away  a  great  deal  of  the 
pleasure  of  correspondence. 

The  psychological  didoes  involved  in  receiv- 
ing letters  and  making  up  one's  mind  to  answer 
them  are  very  complex.  If  the  tangled  process 
could  be  clearly  analyzed  and  its  component 
involutions  isolated  for  inspection  we  might 
reach  a  clearer  comprehension  of  that  curious 
bag  of  tricks,  the  efficient  Masculine  Mind. 

Take  Bill  F.,  for  instance,  a  man  so  delight- 

[35] 


Mince  Pie 

f  ul  that  even  to  contemplate  his  existence  puts 
us  in  good  humor  and  makes  us  think  well  of 
a  world  that  can  exhibit  an  individual  equally 
comely  in  mind,  body  and  estate.  Every  now 
and  then  we  get  a  letter  from  Bill,  and  imme- 
diately we  pass  into  a  kind  of  trance,  in  which 
our  mind  rapidly  enunciates  the  ideas,  thoughts, 
surmises  and  contradictions  that  we  would  like 
to  write  to  him  in  reply.  We  think  what  fun 
it  would  be  to  sit  right  down  and  churn  the 
ink-well,  spreading  speculation  and  cynicism 
over  a  number  of  sheets  of  foolscap  to  be  wafted 
Billward. 

Sternly  we  repress  the  impulse  for  we  know 
that  the  shock  to  Bill  of  getting  so  immediate 
a  retort  would  surely  unhinge  the  well-fitted 
panels  of  his  intellect. 

We  add  his  letter  to  the  large  delta  of  un- 
answered mail  on  our  desk,  taking  occasion  to 
turn  the  mass  over  once  or  twice  and  run 
through  it  in  a  brisk,  smiling  mood,  thinking 
of  all  the  jolly  letters  we  shall  write  some  day. 

After  Bill's  letter  has  lain  on  the  pile  for  a 
fortnight  or  so  it  has  been  gently  silted  over 
by  about  twenty  other  pleasantly  postponed 
manuscripts.  Coming  upon  it  by  chance,  we 
reflect  that  any  specific  problems  raised  by  Bill 
in  that  manifesto  will  by  this  time  have  settled 
ihemselves.    And  his  random  speculations  upon 

[36] 


On  Unanswering  Letters 

household  management  and  human  destiny  will 
probably  have  taken  a  new  slant  by  now,  so 
that  to  answer  his  letter  In  its  own  tune  will 
not  be  congruent  with  his  present  fevers.  We 
had  better  bide  a  wee  imtil  we  really  have  some- 
thing of  circumstance  to  impart. 

We  wait  a  week. 

By  this  time  a  certain  sense  of  shame  has 
begun  to  invade  the  privacy  of  our  brain.  We 
feel  that  to  answer  that  letter  now  would  be  an 
indelicacy.  Better  to  pretend  that  we  never 
got  it.  By  and  by  Bill  will  write  again  and 
then  we  will  answer  promptly.  We  put  the 
letter  back  in  the  middle  of  the  heap  and  think 
what  a  fine  chap  Bill  is.  But  he  knows  we 
love  him,  so  it  doesn't  really  matter  whether 
we  write  or  not. 

Another  week  passes  by,  and  no  further  com- 
munication from  Bill.  We  wonder  whether  he 
does  love  us  as  much  as  we  thought.  Still — 
we  are  too  proud  to  write  and  ask. 

A  few  days  later  a  new  thought  strikes  us. 
Perhaps  Bill  thinks  we  have  died  and  he  is 
annoyed  because  he  wasn't  invited  to  the  fu- 
neral. Ought  we  to  wire  him?  No,  because 
after  all  we  are  not  dead,  and  even  if  he  thinks 
we  are,  his  subsequent  relief  at  hearing  the 
good  news  of  our  survival  will  outweigh  his 
bitterness  during  the  interval.     One  of  these 

[87] 


Mince  Pie 

•days  we  will  write  him  a  letter  that  will  really 
express  our  hearty  filled  with  all  the  grindings 
and  gear-work  of  our  mind,  rich  in  affection 
and  fallacy.  But  we  had  better  let  it  ripen  and 
mellow  for  a  while.  Letters,  like  wines,  accu- 
mulate bright  fumes  and  bubblings  if  kept 
under  cork. 

Presently  we  turn  over  that  pile  of  letters 
again.  We  find  in  the  lees  of  the  heap  two  or 
three  that  have  gone  for  six  months  and  can 
"Safely  be  destroyed.  Bill  is  still  on  our  mind, 
but  in  a  pleasant,  dreamy  kind  of  way.  He 
does  not  ache  or  twinge  us  as  he  did  a  month 
ago.  It  is  fine  to  have  old  friends  like  that 
and  keep  in  touch  with  them.  We  wonder  how 
he  is  and  whether  he  has  two  children  or  three. 
Splendid  old  Bill! 

By  this  time  we  have  written  Bill  several 
letters  in  imagination  and  enjoyed  doing  so, 
but  the  matter  of  sending  him  an  actual  letter 
has  begun  to  pall.  The  thought  no  longer  has 
the  savor  and  vivid  sparkle  it  had  once.  When 
one  feels  like  that  it  is  unwise  to  write.  Let- 
ters should  be  spontaneous  outpourings:  they 
should  never  be  undertaken  merely  from  a  sense 
of  duty.  We  know  that  Bill  wouldn't  want  to 
get  a  letter  that  was  dictated  by  a  feeling  of 
obligation. 

Another  fortnight  or  so  elapsing,  it  occurs  to 
[38] 


On  Unanswering  Letters 

us  that  we  have  entirely  forgotten  what  Bill 
said  to  us  in  that  letter.  We  take  it  out  and 
con  it  over.  Delightful  fellow!  It  is  full  of 
his  own  felicitous  kinks  of  whim^  though  some 
of  it  sounds  a  little  old-fashioned  by  now. 
It  seems  a  bit  stale,  has  lost  some  of  its  fresh- 
ness and  surprise.  Better  not  answer  it  just 
yet,  for  Christmas  will  soon  be  here  and  we 
shall  have  to  write  then  anyway.  We  wonder, 
can  Bill  hold  out  until  Christmas  without  a 
letter? 

We  have  been  rereading  some  of  those  im- 
aginary letters  to  Bill  that  have  been  dancing 
in  our  head.  They  are  full  of  all  sorts  of  fine 
stuff.  If  Bill  ever  gets  them  he  will  know 
how  we  love  him.  To  use  O.  Henry's  immortal 
joke,  we  have  days  of  Damon  and  Knights  of 
Pythias  writing  those  uninked  letters  to  Bill. 
A  curious  thought  has  come  to  us.  Perhaps  it 
would  be  better  if  we  never  saw  Bill  again. 
It  is  very  difficult  to  talk  to  a  man  when  you 
like  him  so  much.  It  is  much  easier  to  write 
in  the  sweet  fantastic  strain.  We  are  so  in- 
articulate when  face  to  face.  If  Bill  comes  to 
town  we  will  leave  word  that  we  have  gone 
away.  Good  old  Bill!  He  will  always  be  a 
precious  memory. 

A  few  days  later  a  sudden  frenzy  sweeps 
over   us,   and   though  we  have  many   pressing 

[39] 


Mince  Pie 

matters  on  hand,  we  mobilize  pen  and  paper  and 
literary  shock  troops  and  prepare  to  hurl  sev- 
eral battalions  at  Bill.  But,  strangely  enough, 
our  utterance  seems  stilted  and  stiff.  We  have 
nothing  to  say.  My  dear  Bill,  we  begin,  it 
seems  a  long  time  since  we  heard  from  you. 
Why  don't  you  write f  We  still  love  you,  in 
spite  of  all  your  shortcomings. 

That  doesn't  seem  very  cordial.  We  muse 
over  the  pen  and  nothing  comes.  Bursting  with 
affection,  we  are  unable  to  say  a  word. 

Just  then  the  phone  rings.  **Hello?"  we 
say. 

It  is  Bill,  come  to  town  unexpectedly. 

"Good  old  fish!"  we  cry,  ecstatic.  **Meet 
you  at  the  corner  of  Tenth  and  Chestnut  in 
five  minutes." 

We  tear  up  the  unfinished  letter.  Bill  will 
never  know  how  much  we  love  him.  Perhaps 
it  is  just  as  well.  It  is  very  embarrassing  to 
have  your  friends  know  how  you  feel  about 
them.  When  we  meet  him  we  will  be  a  little 
bit  on  our  guard.  It  would  not  be  well  to  be 
betrayed  into   any   extravagance   of   cordiality. 

And  perhaps  a  not  altogether  false  little 
story  could  be  written  about  a  man  who  never 
visited  those  most  dear  to  him,  because  it  panged 
him  so  to  say  good-bye  when  he  had  to  leave. 

[40] 


A  LETTER  TO  FATHER  TIME 

(New  Year's  Eve) 

DEAR  Father  Time— This  is  your  night  of 
triumph,  and  it  seems  only  fair  to  pay  you 
a  little  tribute.  Some  people,  in  a  noble  mood 
of  bravado,  consider  New  Year's  Eve  an  occa- 
sion of  festivity.  Long,  long  in  advance  they 
reserve  a  table  at  their  favorite  cafe;  and  be- 
comingly habited  in  boiled  shirts  or  gowns  of 
the  lowest  visibility,  and  well  armed  with  a 
commodity  which  is  said  to  be  synonymous  with 
yourself — money — they  seek  to  outwit  you  by 
crowding  a  month  of  merriment  into  half  a 
dozen  hours.  Yet  their  victory  is  brief  and 
fallacious,  for  if  hours  spin  too  fast  by  night 
they  will  move  grindingly  on  the  axle  the  next 
morning.  None  of  us  can  beat  you  in  the 
end.  Even  the  hat-check  boy  grows  old,  be- 
comes gray  and  dies  at  last  babbling  of  green- 
backs. 

To  my  own  taste,  old  Time,  it  is  more  agree- 
able to  make  this  evening  a  season  of  gruesome 
brooding.      Morosely   I   survey   the   faults   and 

[41] 


Mince  Pie 

follies  of  my  last  year.  I  am  grown  too  camiy 
to  pour  the  new  wine  of  good  resolution  into 
the  old  bottles  of  my  imperfect  humors.  But  I 
get  a  certain  grim  satisfaction  in  thinking  how 
we  all — every  human  being  of  us — share  alike 
in  bondage  to  your  oppression.  There  is  the 
only  true  and  complete  democracy,  the  only 
absolute  brotherhood  of  man.  The  great  ones 
of  the  earth — Charley  Chaplin  and  Douglas 
Fairbanks,  General  Pershing  and  Miss  Amy 
Lowell — all  these  are  in  service  to  the  same 
tyranny.  Day  after  day  slips  or  jolts  past, 
joins  the  Great  Majority;  suddenly  we  wake 
with  a  start  to  find  that  the  best  of  it  is  gone 
by.  Surely  it  seems  but  a  day  ago  that  Steven- 
son set  out  to  write  a  little  book  that  was  to  be 
called  "Life  at  Twenty-five" — ^before  he  got  it 
written  he  was  long  past  the  delectable  age — 
and  now  we  rub  our  eyes  and  see  he  has  been 
dead  longer  than  the  span  of  life  he  then  so  de- 
lightfully contemplated.  If  there  is  one  medi- 
tation common  to  every  adult  on  this  globe  it 
is  this,  so  variously  phrased,  "Well,  bo,  Time 
sure  does  hustle." 

Some  of  them  have  scurvily  entreated  you, 
old  Time !  The  thief  of  youth,  they  have  called 
you;  a  highwayman,  a  gipsy,  a  grim  reaper. 
It  seems  a  little  unfair.  For  you  have  your 
kindly  moods,  too.  Without  your  gentle  pas- 
[42] 


A  Letter  to  Father  Time 

sage  where  were  Memory,  the  sweetest  of 
lesser  pleasures  ?  You  are  the  only  medicine  for 
many  a  woe,  many  a  sore  heart.  And  surely  you 
have  a  right  to  reap  where  you  alone  have  sown  ? 
Our  strength,  our  wit,  our  comeliness,  all  those 
virtues  and  graces  that  you  pilfer  with  such 
gentle  hand,  did  you  not  give  them  to  us  in  the 
first  place?  Give,  do  I  say?  Nay,  we  knew, 
even  as  we  clutched  them,  they  were  but  a  loan. 
And  the  great  immortality  of  the  race  endures, 
for  every  day  that  we  see  taken  away  from  our- 
selves we  see  added  to  our  children  or  our 
grandchildren.  It  was  Shakespeare,  who 
thought  a  great  deal  about  you,  who  put  it 
best: 

Nativity,  once  in  the  main  of  light. 

Crawls   to   maturity,  wherewith   being   crowned. 
Crooked  eclipses  'gainst  his  glory  fight 

And  Time  that  gave  doth  now  his  gift  confound— 

It  is  to  be  hoped,  my  dear  Time,  that  you 
have  read  Shakespeare's  sonnets,  because  they 
will  teach  you  a  deal  about  the  dignity  of  your 
career,  and  also  suggest  to  you  the  only  way 
we  have  of  keeping  up  with  you.  There  is  no 
way  of  outwitting  Time,  Shakespeare  tells  his 
young  friend,  "Save  breed  to  brave  him  when 
he  takes  thee  hence.**  Or,  as  a  poor  bungling 
parodist  revamped  it: 

[48] 


Mince  Pie 

Pep  is  the  stuff  to  put  Old  Time  on  skids — 
Pep  in  your  copy,  yes,  and  lots  of  kids. 

It  is  true  that  Shakespeare  hints  another  way 
of  doing  you  in,  which  is  to  write  sonnets  as 
good  as  his.  This  way,  needless  to  add,  is 
open   to    few. 

Well,  my  dear  Time,  you  are  not  going  to 
fool  me  into  making  myself  ridiculous  this  New 
Year's  Eve  with  a  lot  of  bonny  but  impossible 
resolutions.  I  know  that  you  are  playing  with 
me  just  as  a  cat  plays  with  a  mouse;  yet  even 
the  most  piteous  mousekin  sometimes  causes 
his  tormentor  surprise  or  disappointment  by 
getting  under  a  bureau  or  behind  the  stove, 
where,  for  the  moment,  she  cannot  paw  him. 
Every  now  and  then,  with  a  little  luck,  I  shall 
pull  off  just  such  a  scurry  into  temporary  im- 
mortality. It  may  come  by  reading  Dickens 
or  by  seeing  a  sunset,  or  by  lunching  with 
friends,  or  by  forgetting  to  wind  the  alarm 
clock,  or  by  contemplating  the  rosy  little  pate 
of  my  daughter,  who  is  still  only  a  nine  days* 
wonder — so  young  that  she  doesn't  even  know 
what  you  are  doing  to  her.  But  you  are  not 
going  to  have  the  laugh  on  me  by  luring  me 
into  resolutions.  I  know  my  weaknesses.  I 
know  that  I  shall  probably  continue  to  annoy 
newsdealers  by  reading  the  magazines  on  the 


A  Letter  to  Father  Time 

stalls  instead  of  buying  them;  that  I  shall  put 
off  having  my  hair  cut;  drop  tobacco  cinders  on 
my  waistcoat;  feel  bored  at  the  idea  of  having 
to  shave  and  get  dressed;  be  nervous  when  the 
gas  burner  pops  when  turned  off;  buy  more 
Liberty  Bonds  than  I  can  afford  and  have  to 
hock  them  at  a  grievous  loss.  I  shall  continue 
to  be  pleasant  to  insurance  agents,  from  sheer 


lack  of  manhood;  and  to  keep  library  books 
out  over  the  date  and  so  incur  a  fine.  My  only 
hope,  you  see,  is  resolutely  to  determine  to  per- 
sist in  these  failings.  Then,  by  sheer  pervers- 
ity, I  may  grow  out  of  them. 
1  What  avail,  indeed,  for  any  of  us  to  make 
good  resolutions  when  one  contemplates  the 
grand  pageant  of  human  frailty  ?  Observe  what 
I  noticed  the  other  day  in  the  Lost  and  Found 
column  of  the  New  York  Times: 

[45] 


Mince  Pie 

LOST— Hotel  Imperial  lavatory,  set  of  teeth.  Call 
or  communicate  Flint,  134  East  43d  street.  Re- 
ward. 


Surely,  if  Mr.  Flint  could  not  remember  to 
keep  his  teeth  in  his  mouth,  or  if  any  one  else 
was  so  basely  whimsical  as  to  juggle  them  away 
from  him,  it  may  well  teach  us  to  be  chary  of 
extravagant  hopes  for  the  future.  Even  the 
League  of  Nations,  when  one  contemplates  the 
sad  case  of  Mr.  Flint,  becomes  a  rather  anemic 
safeguard.  We  had  better  keep  Mr.  Flint  in 
mind  through  the  New  Year  as  a  symbol  of  hu- 
man error  and  disappointment.  And  the  best  of 
it  is,  my  dear  Time,  that  you,  too,  may  be  a 
little  careless.  Perhaps  one  of  these  days  you 
may  doze  a  little  and  we  shall  steal  a  few  hours 
of  timeless  bliss.  Shall  we  see  a  little  ad  in 
the  papers: 

LOST — Sixty  valuable  minutes,  said  to  have  been 
stolen  by  the  unworthy  human  race.  If  found, 
please  return  to  Father  Time,  and  no  questions 
asked. 

Well,  my  dear  Time,  we  approach  the  Zero 
Hour.  I  hope  you  will  have  a  Happy  New 
Year,  and  conduct  yourself  with  becoming  re- 
straint. So  live,  my  dear  fellow,  that  we  may 
say,  "A  good  Time  was  enjoyed  by  all."  As 
[46] 


A  Letter  to  Father  Time 

the  hands  of  the  clock  go  over  the  top  and  into 
the  No  Man's  Land  of  the  New  Year,  good 
luck  to  you! 

Your  obedient  servant! 


im 


WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

WHAT  a  delicate  and  rare  and  gracious 
art  is  the  art  of  conversation!  With 
what  a  dexterity  and  skill  the  bubble  of  speech 
must  be  maneuvered  if  mind  is  to  meet  and 
mingle  with  mind. 

There  is  no  sadder  disappointment  than  to 
realize  that  a  conversation  has  been  a  complete 
failure.  By  which  we  mean  that  it  has  failed  in 
blending  or  isolating  for  contrast  the  ideas, 
opinions  and  surmises  of  two  eager  minds.  So 
often  a  conversation  is  shipwrecked  by  the  very 
eagerness  of  one  member  to  contribute.  There 
must  be  give  and  take,  parry  and  thrust,  pa- 
tience to  hear  and  judgment  to  utter.  How 
uneasy  is  the  qualm  as  one  looks  back  on  an 
hour's  talk  and  sees  that  the  opportunity  was 
wasted;  the  precious  instant  of  intercourse  gone 
forever:  the  secrets  of  the  heart  still  incom- 
municate!  Perhaps  we  were  too  anxious  to 
hurry  the  moment,  to  enforce  our  own  theory, 
to  adduce  instance  from  our  own  experience. 
Perhaps  we  were  not  patient  enough  to  wait 
[48] 


What  Men  Live  By 

until  our  friend  could  express  himself  with 
ease  and  happiness.  Perhaps  we  squandered 
the  dialogue  in  tangent  topics,  in  a  multitude 
of  irrelevances. 

How  few,  how  few  are  those  gifted  for  real 
talk!  There  are  fine  merry  fellows,  full  of 
mirth  and  shrewdly  minted  observation,  who 
will  not  abide  by  one  topic,  who  must  always 
be  lashing  out  upon  some  new  byroad,  snatching 
at  every  bush  they  pass.     They  are  too  excit- 


able, too  ungoverned  for  the  joys  of  patient 
intercourse.  Talk  is  so  solemn  a  rite  it  should 
be  approached  with  prayer  and  must  be  con- 
ducted with  nicety  and  forbearance.  What 
steadiness  and  sympathy  are  needed  if  the 
thread  of  thought  is  to  be  unwound  without 
tangles  or  snapping!  What  forbearance,  while 
each  of  the  pair,  after  tentative  gropings  here 
and  yonder,  feels  his  way  toward  truth  as  he 
sees  it.  So  often  two  in  talk  are  like  men 
standing  back  to  back,  each  trying  to  describe 
to  the  other  what  he  sees  and  disputing  because 

[49] 


Mince  Pie 

their  visions  do  not  tally.  It  takes  a  little  time 
for  minds  to  turn  face  to  face. 

Very  often  conversations  are  better  among 
three  than  between  two^  for  the  reason  that 
then  one  of  the  trio  is  always,  unconsciously, 
acting  as  umpire,  interposing  fair  play,  recall- 
ing wandering  wits  to  the  nub  of  the  argu- 
ment, seeing  that  the  aggressiveness  of  one  does 
no  foul  to  the  reticence  of  another.  Talk  in 
twos  may,  alas !  fall  into  speaker  and  listener : 
talk  in  threes  rarely  does  so. 

It  is  little  realized  how  slowly,  how  pain- 
fully, we  approach  the  expression  of  truth.  We 
are  so  variable,  so  anxious  to  be  polite,  and 
alternately  swayed  by  caution  or  anger.  Our 
mind  oscillates  like  a  pendulum:  it  takes  some 
time  for  it  to  come  to  rest.  And  then,  the 
proper  allowance  and  correction  has  to  be  made 
for  our  individual  vibrations  that  prevent  ac- 
curacy. Even  the  compass  needle  doesn't  point 
the  true  north,  but  only  the  magnetic  north. 
Similarly  our  minds  at  best  can  but  indicate 
magnetic  truth,  and  are  distorted  by  many 
things  that  act  as  iron  filings  do  on  the  com- 
pass. The  necessity  of  holding  one's  job:  what 
an  iron  filing  that  is  on  the  compass  card  of 
a  man's  brain! 

We  are  all  afraid  of  truth:  we  keep  a  bat- 
talion of  our  pet  prejudices  and  precautions 
[50] 


What  Men  Live  By 

ready  to  throw  into  the  argument  as  shock 
troops,  rather  than  let  our  fortress  of  Truth 
be  stormed.  We  have  smoke  bombs  and  decoy 
ships  and  all  manner  of  cunning  colorizations 
by  which  we  conceal  our  innards  from  our 
friends,  and  even  from  ourselves.  How  we 
fume  and  fidget,  how  we  bustle  and  dodge  rather 
than  commit  ourselves. 

In  days  of  hurry  and  complication,  in  the 
incessant  pressure  of  human  problems  that 
thrust  our  days  behind  us,  does  one  never  dream 
of  a  way  of  life  in  which  talk  would  be  honored 
and  exalted  to  its  proper  place  in  the  sun? 
What  a  zest  there  is  in  that  intimate  unre- 
served exchange  of  thought,  in  the  pursuit  of 
the  magical  blue  bird  of  joy  and  human  satis- 
faction that  may  be  seen  flitting  distantly 
through  the  branches  of  life.  It  was  a  sad 
thing  for  the  world  when  it  grew  so  busy  that 
men  had  no  time  to  talk.  There  are  such 
treasures  of  knowledge  and  compassion  in  the 
minds  of  our  friends,  could  we  only  have  time 
to  talk  them  out  of  their  shy  quarries.  If  we 
had  our  way,  we  would  set  aside  one  day  a 
week  for  talking.  In  fact,  we  would  reorganize 
the  week  altogether.  We  would  have  one  day 
for  Worship  (let  each  man  devote  it  to  wor- 
ship of  whatever  he  holds  dearest) ;  one  day 
for  Work ;  one  day  for  Play  (probably  fishing)  ; 

[51] 


Mince  Pie 

one  day  for  Talking ;  one  day  for  Reading,  and 
one  day  for  Smoking  and  Thinking.  That 
would  leave  one  day  for  Resting,  and  (inci- 
dentally) interviewing  employers. 

The  best  week  of  our  life  was  one  in  which 
we  did  nothing  but  talk.  We  spent  it  with  a 
delightful  gentleman  who  has  a  little  bungalow 
on  the  shore  of  a  lake  in  Pike  County.  He  had 
a  great  many  books  and  cigars,  both  of  which 
are  conversational  stimulants.  We  used  to  lie 
out  on  the  edge  of  the  lake,  in  our  oldest  trous- 
ers, and  talk.  We  discussed  ever  so  many  sub- 
jects; in  all  of  them  he  knew  immensely  more 
than  we  did.  We  built  up  a  complete  philoso- 
phy of  indolence  and  good  will,  according  to 
Food  and  Sleep  and  Swimming  their  proper 
share  of  homage.  We  rose  at  10  in  the  morn- 
ing and  began  talking;  we  talked  all  day  and 
until  3  o'clock  at  night.  Then  we  went  to  bed 
and  regained  strength  and  combativeness  for 
the  coming  day.  Never  was  a  week  better 
spent.  We  committed  no  crimes,  planned  no 
secret  treaties,  devised  no  annexations  or  indem- 
nities. We  envied  no  one.  We  examined  the 
entire  world  and  found  it  worth  while.  Mean- 
while our  wives,  who  were  watching  (perhaps 
with  a  little  quiet  indignation)  from  the  veran- 
da, kept  on  asking  us,  "What  on  earth  do  you 
talk  about.?** 
[62] 


What  Men  Live  By 

Bless  their  hearts,  men  don't  have  to  have 
anything  to  talk  about.     They  just  talk. 

And  there  is  only  one  rule  for  being  a  good 
talker:  learn  how  to  listen. 


IS8] 


THE  UNNATURAL  NATURALIST 

IT  gives  us  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  to  an- 
nounce^  officially,  that  spring  has  arrived. 

Our  statement  is  not  based  on  any  irrelevant 
data  as  to  equinoxes  or  bluebirds  or  bock-beer 
signs,  but  is  derived  from  the  deepest  authority 
we  know  anything  about,  our  subconscious  self. 
We  remember  that  some  philosopher,  perhaps 
it  was  Professor  James,  suggested  that  indi- 
viduals are  simply  peaks  of  self-consciousness 
rising  out  of  the  vast  ocean  of  collective  human 
Mind  in  which  we  all  swim,  and  are,  at  bottom, 
one.  Whenever  we  have  to  decide  any  im- 
portant matter,  such  as  when  to  get  our  hair 
cut  and  whether  to  pay  a  bill  or  not,  and 
whether  to  call  for  the  check  or  let  the  other 
fellow  do  so,  we  don't  attempt  to  harass  our 
conscious  volition  with  these  decisions.  We  rely 
on  our  subconscious  and  instinctive  person,  and 
for  better  or  worse  we  have  to  trust  to  its  right- 
eousness and  good  sense.  We  just  find  our- 
self  doing  something  and  we  carry  on  and  hope 
it  is  for  the  best. 

From  this  deep  abyss  of  subconsciousness  we 
[54] 


The  Unnatural  Naturalist 

learn  that  it  is  spring.  The  mottled  goosebone 
of  the  Allentown  prophet  is  no  more  meteoro- 
logically accurate  than  our  subconscience.  And 
this  is  how  it  works. 

Once  a  year,  about  the  approach  of  the  ver- 
nal equinox  or  the  seedsman's  catalogue,  we 
wake  up  at  6  o'clock  in  the  morning.  This  is 
an  imfiiediate  warning  and  apprisement  that 
something  is  adrift.  Three  hundred  and  sixty- 
four  days  in  the  year  we  wake,  placidly  enough, 
at  seven-ten,  ten  minutes  after  the  alarm  clock 
has  jangled.  But  on  this  particular  day, 
whether  it  be  the  end  of  February  or  the  mid- 
dle of  March,  we  wake  with  the  old  recogniz- 
able nostalgia.  It  is  the  last  polyp  or  vestige 
of  our  anthropomorphic  and  primal  self,  trail- 
ing its  pathetic  little  wisp  of  glory  for  the  one 
day  of  the  whole  calendar.  All  the  rest  of  the 
year  we  are  the  plodding  percheron  of  com- 
merce, patiently  tugging  our  wain;  but  on  that 
morning  there  wambles  back,  for  the  nonce, 
the  pang  of  Eden.  We  wake  at  6  o'clock;  it 
is  a  blue  and  golden  morning  and  we  feel  it 
imperative  to  get  outdoors  as  quickly  as  pos- 
sible. Not  for  an  instant  do  we  feel  the  cus- 
tomary respectable  and  sanctioned  desire  to  kiss 
the  sheets  yet  an  hour  or  so.  The  traipsing, 
trolloping  humor  of  spring  is  in  our  veins;  we 
feel  that  we  must  be  about  felling  an  aurochs 

[55] 


Mince  Pie 

or  a  narwhal  for  breakfast.  We  leap  into  our 
clothes  and  hurry  downstairs  and  out  of  the 
front  door  and  skirmish  round  the  house  to  see 
and  smell  and  feel. 

It  is  spring.  It  is  unmistakably  spring,  be- 
cause the  pewit  bushes  are  budding  and  on 
yonder  aspen  we  can  hear  a  forsythia  bursting 
into  song.  It  is  spring,  when  the  feet  of  the 
floorwalker  pain  him  and  smoking-car  windows 
have  to  be  pried  open  with  chisels.  We  skip 
lightheartedly  round  the  house  to  see  if  those 
bobolink  bulbs  we  planted  are  showing  any  signs 
yet,  and  discover  the  whisk  brush  that  fell  out 
of  the  window  last  November.  And  then  the 
newsboy  comes  along  the  street  and  sees  us 
prancing  about  and  we  feel  sheepish  and 
ashamed   and   hurry    indoors    again. 

There  may  still  be  blizzards  and  frozen 
plumbings  and  tumbles  on  icy  pavements,  but 
when  that  morning  of  annunciation  has  come 
to  us  we  know  that  winter  is  truly  dead,  even 
though  his  ghost  may  walk  and  gibber  once  or 
twice.  The  sweet  urge  of  the  new  season  has 
rippled  up  through  the  oceanic  depths  of  our 
subconsciousness,  and  we  are  aware  of  the  ris- 
ing tide.  Like  Mr.  Wordsworth  we  feel  that 
we  are  wiser  than  we  know.  (Perhaps  we  have 
misquoted  that,  but  let  it  stand.) 

There  are  other  troubles  that  spring  brings 
[66] 


The  Unnatural  Naturalist 

us.  We  are  pitifully  ashamed  of  our  ignorance 
of  nature,  and  though  we  try  to  hide  it  we  keep 
getting  tripped  up.  About  this  time  of  year 
inquisitive  persons  are  always  asking  us :  "Have 
you  heard  any  song  sparrows  yet?"  or  "Are 
there  any  robins  out  your  way?"  or  "When  do 
the  laburnums  begin  to  nest  out  in  Marathon?** 
Now  we  really  can't  tell  these  people  our  true 


c.^^ 


feeling,  which  is  that  we  do  not  believe  in  peek- 
ing in  on  the  privacy  of  the  laburnums  or  any 
other  songsters.  It  seems  to  us  really  immodest 
to  keep  on  spying  on  the  birds  in  that  way.  And 
as  for  the  bushes  and  trees,  what  we  want  to 
know  is.  How  does  one  ever  get  to  know  them? 
How  do  you  find  out  which  is  an  alder  and 
what  is  an  elm?  Or  a  narcissus  and  a  hyacinthy 
does  any  one  really  know  them  apart?  We 
think  it*s  all  a  bluff.  And  jonquils.  There  was 
a  nest  of  them  on  our  porch,  we  are  told,  but 

[57] 


Mince  Pie 

we  didn't  think  it  any  business  of  ours  to  bother 
them.  Let  nature  alone  and  she'll  let  you 
alone. 

But  there  is  a  pettifogging  cult  about  that 
says  you  ought  to  know  these  things;  more- 
over, children  keep  on  asking  one.  We  always 
answer  at  random  and  say  it's  a  wagtail  or  a 
flowering  shrike  or  a  female  magnolia.  We  were 
brought  up  in  the  country  and  learned  that  first 
principle  of  good  manners,  which  is  to  let  birds 
and  flowers  and  animals  go  on  about  their  own 
aff'airs  without  pestering  them  by  asking  them 
their  names  and  addresses.  Surely  that's  what 
Shakespeare  meant  by  saying  a  rose  by  any 
other  name  will  smell  as  sweet.  We  can  enjoy 
a  rose  just  as  much  as  any  one,  even  if  we 
may  think  it's  a  hydrangea. 

And  then  we  are  much  too  busy  to  worry 
about  robins  and  bluebirds  and  other  poultry 
of  that  sort.  Of  course,  if  we  see  one  hanging 
about  the  lawn  and  it  looks  hungry  we  have 
decency  enough  to  throw  out  a  bone  or  some- 
thing for  it,  but  after  all  we  have  a  lot  of 
troubles  of  our  own  to  bother  about.  We  are 
short-sighted,  too,  and  if  we  try  to  get  near 
enough  to  see  if  it  is  a  robin  or  only  a  ban- 
danna some  one  has  dropped,  why  either  it 
flies  away  before  we  get  there  or  it  does  turn 
out  to  be  a  bandanna  or  a  clothespin.  One  of 
[58] 


The  Unnatural  Naturalist 

our  friends  kept  on  talking  about  a  Baltimore 
oriole  she  had  seen  near  our  house,  and  de- 
scribed it  as  a  beautiful  yellowish  fowl.  We 
felt  quite  ashamed  to  be  so  ignorant,  and  when 
one  day  we  thought  we  saw  one  near  the  front 
porch  we  left  what  we  were  doing,  which  was 
writing  a  check  for  the  coal  man,  and  went 
out  to  stalk  it.  After  much  maneuvering  we 
got  near,  made  a  dash — and  it  was  a  banana 
peel!  The  oriole  had  gone  back  to  Baltimore 
the  day  before. 

We  love  to  read  about  the  birds  and  flowers 
and  shrubs  and  insects  in  poetry,  and  it  makes 
us  very  happy  to  know  they  are  all  round  us, 
innocent  little  things  like  mice  and  centipedes 
and  goldenrods  (until  hay  fever  time),  but  as 
for  prying  into  their  affairs  we  simply  won't 
do  it. 


[59] 


SITTING  IN  THE  BARBER'S  CHAIR 

ONCE  every  ten  weeks  or  so  we  get  our 
hair  cut. 

We  are  not  generally  parsimonious  of  our 
employer's  time,  but  somehow  we  do  hate  to 
squander  that  thirty-three  minutes,  which  is  the 
exact  chronicide  involved  in  despoiling  our  skull 
of  a  ten  weeks'  garner.  If  we  were  to  have  our 
hair  cut  at  the  end  of  eight  weeks  the  shearing 
would  take  only  thirty-one  minutes;  but  we 
can  never  bring  ourselves  to  rob  our  employer 
of  that  much  time  until  we  reckon  he  is  really 
losing  prestige  by  our  unkempt  appearance. 
Of  course,  we  believe  in  having  our  hair  cut 
during  office  hours.  That  is  the  only  device 
we  know  to  make  the  hateful  operation  toler- 
able. 

To  the  times  mentioned  above  should  be  added 
fifteen  seconds,  which  is  the  slice  of  eternity 
needed  to  trim,  prune  and  chasten  our  mustache, 
which  is  not  a  large  group  of  foliage. 

We  knew  a  traveling  man  who  never  got  his 
hair  cut  except  when  he  was  on  the  road,  which 
permitted  him  to  include  the  transaction  in  his 
[60] 


Sitting  in  the  Barber's  Chair 

expense  account;  but  somehow  it  seems  to  us 
more  ethical  to  steal  time  than  to  steal  money. 

We  like  to  view  this  whole  matter  in  a  philo- 
sophical and  ultra-pragmatic  way.  Some  ob- 
servers have  hazarded  that  our  postponement 
of  haircuts  is  due  to  mere  lethargy  and  inertia, 
but  that  is  not  so.  Every  time  we  get  our  locks 
shorn  our  wife  tells  us  that  we  have  got  them 
too  short.  She  says  that  our  head  has  a  very 
homely  and  bourgeois  bullet  shape,  a  sort  o£ 
pithecanthropoid  contour,  which  is  revealed  by 
a  close  trim.  After  five  weeks'  growth,  how- 
ever, we  begin  to  look  quite  distinguished.  The 
difficulty  then  is  to  ascertain  just  when  the  law 
of  diminishing  returns  comes  into  play.  When 
do  we  cease  to  look  distinguished  and  begin 
to  appear  merely  slovenly?  Careful  study  has 
taught  us  that  this  begins  to  take  place  at  the 
end  of  sixty-five  days,  in  warm  weather.  Add 
five  days  or  so  for  natural  procrastination  and 
devilment,  and  we  have  seventy  days  interval, 
which  we  have  posited  as  the  ideal  orbit  for 
our  tonsorial  ecstasies. 

When  at  last  we  have  hounded  ourself  into 
robbing  our  employer  of  those  thirty-three  min- 
utes, plus  fifteen  seconds  for  you  know  what, 
we  find  ourself  in  the  barber's  chair.  Despair- 
ingly we  gaze  about  at  the  little  blue  flasks  with 
flowers  enameled  on  them;  at  the  piles  of  clean 

[61] 


Mince  Pie 

towels ;  at  the  bottles  of  mandrake  essence  which 
we  shall  presently  have  to  affirm  or  deny.  Un- 
der any  other  circumstances  we  should  deeply 
enjoy  a  half  hour  spent  in  a  comfortable  chair, 
with  nothing  to  do  but  do  nothing.  Our  bar- 
ber is  a  delightful  fellow;  he  looks  benign  and 
does  not  prattle;  he  respects  the  lobes  of  our 
ears  and  other  vulnerabilia.  But  for  some  in- 
scrutable reason  we  feel  strangely  ill  at  ease 
in  his  chair.  We  can't  think  of  anything  to 
think  about.  Blankly  we  brood  in  the  hope  of 
catching  the  hem  of  some  intimation  of  im- 
mortality. But  no,  there  is  nothing  to  do  but 
sit  there,  useless  as  an  incubator  with  no  eggs 
in  it.  The  processes  of  wasting  and  decay  are 
hurrying  us  rapidly  to  a  pauperish  grave,  every 
instant  brings  us  closer  to  a  notice  in  the  obit 
column,  and  yet  we  sit  and  sit  without  two 
worthy  thoughts  to  rub  against  each  other. 

Oh,  the  poverty  of  mortal  mind,  the  sad  mea- 
gerness  of  the  human  soul!  Here  we  are,  a 
vital,  breathing  entity,  transformed  to  a  mere 
chemical  carcass  by  the  bleak  magic  of  the 
barber's  chair.  In  our  anatomy  of  melancholy 
there  are  no  such  atrabiliar  moments  as  those 
thirty-three  (and  a  quarter)  minutes  once  every 
ten  weeks.  Roughly  speaking,  we  spend  three 
hours  of  this  living  death  every  year. 

And  yet,  perhaps  it  is  worth  it,  for  what  a 

[63] 


Sitting  in  the  Barber's  Chair 

jocund  and  pantheistic  merriment  possesses  us 
when  we  escape  from  the  shop!  Bay-rummed^ 
powdered,  shorn,  brisk  and  perfumed,  we  fare 
down  the  street  exhaling  the  syrups  of  Cathay. 
Once  more  we  can  take  our  rightful  place 
among  aggressive  and  well-groomed  men;  we 
can  look  in  the  face  without  blenching  those 
human  leviathans  who  are  ever  creased,  razored, 
and  white-margined  as  to  vest.  We  are  a  man 
among  men  and  our  untethered  mind  jostles  the 
stars.  We  have  had  our  hair  cut,  and  no 
matter  what  gross  contours  our  cropped  skull 
may  display  to  wives  or  ethnologists,  we  are 
a  free  man  for  ten  dear  weeks. 


[63] 


BROWN  EYES  AND  EQUINOXES 

WHAT  is  an  equinox?"  said  Titania. 
I  pretended  not  to  hear  her  and  prayed 
fervently  that  the  inquiry  would  pass  from  her 
mind.  Sometimes  her  questions,  if  ignored,  are 
effaced  by  some  other  thought  that  possesses 
her  active  brain.  I  rattled  my  paper  briskly 
and  kept  well  behind  it. 

"Yes/'  I  murmured  husbandly,  "delicious,  de- 
licious !  My  dear,  you  certainly  plan  the  most 
delightful  meals."  Meanwhile  I  was  glancing 
feverishly  at  the  daily  Quiz  column  to  see  if 
that  noble  cascade  of  popular  information  might 
give  any  help.     It  did  not. 

Clear  brown  eyes  looked  across  the  table 
gravely.  I  could  feel  them  through  the  spring 
overcoat  ads. 

"What  is  an  equinox?" 

"I  think  I  must  have  left  my  matches  up- 
stairs," I  said,  and  went  up  to  look  for  them. 
I  stayed  aloft  ten  minutes  and  hoped  that  by 
that  time  she  would  have  passed  on  to  some 
other  topic.  I  did  not  waste  my  time,  however; 
I  looked  everywhere  for  the  "Children's  Book 
[64] 


Brown  Eyes  and  Equinoxes 

of  a  Million  Reasons/*  until  I  remembered  it 
was  under  the  dining-room  table  taking  the 
place  of  a  missing  caster. 

When  I  slunk  into  the  living  room  again  I 
hastily  suggested  a  game  of  double  Canfield, 
but  Titania's  brow  was  still  perplexed.  Look- 
ing across  at  me  with  that  direct  brown  gaze 
that  would  compel  even  a  milliner  to  relent,  she 
asked : 

"What  is  an  equinox?" 

I  tried  to  pass  it  off  flippantly. 

"A  kind  of  alarm  clock/'  I  said,  "that  lets 
the  bulbs  and  bushes  know  it's  time  to  get  up/* 

**No;  but  honestly.  Bob/'  she  said,  "I  want 
to  know.  It's  something  about  an  equal  day 
and  an  equal  night,  isn't  it?" 

"At  the  equinox,"  I  said  sternly,  hoping  to 
overawe  her,  "the  day  and  the  night  are  of 
equal  duration.  But  only  for  one  night.  On 
the  following  day  the  sun,  declining  in  peri- 
helion, produces  the  customary  inequality.  The 
usual  working  day  is  much  longer  than  the 
night  of  relaxation  that  follows  it,  as  every 
toiler  knows." 

"Yes,"  she  said  thoughtfully,  "but  how  does 
it  work?  It  says  something  in  this  article 
about  the  days  getting  longer  in  the  Northern 
Hemisphere,  while  they  are  getting  shorter  in 
the  Southern." 

[65] 


Mince  Pie 

"Of  course/*  I  agreed,  "conditions  are  totally 
different  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  But 
as  far  as  we  are  concerned  here,  the  sun,  re- 
volving round  the  earth,  casts  a  beneficent  shad- 
ow, which  is  generally  regarded  as  the  time  to 
quit  work.     This  shadow " 

**I  thought  the  earth  revolved  round  the  sun/' 
she  said.     "Wasn't  that  what  Galileo  proved?" 

"He  was  afterward  discovered  to  be  mis- 
taken," I  said.  "That  was  what  caused  all 
the  trouble." 

"What  trouble?"  she  asked,  much  interested. 

"Why,  he  and  Socrates  had  to  take  hemlock 
or  they  were  drowned  in  a  butt  of  malmsey,  I 
really  forget  which." 

"Well,  after  the  equinox/*  said  Titania,  "do 
the  days  get  longer?" 

"They  do,**  I  said;  "in  order  to  permit  the 
double-headers.  And  now  that  daylight  saving 
is  to  go  into  effect,  equinoxes  won't  be  neces- 
sary any  more.  Very  likely  the  pan-Russian 
Soviets,  or  President  Wilson,  or  somebody,  will 
abolish  them.*' 

"June  21  is  the  longest  day  in  the  year,  isn't 
it?** 

"The  day  before  pay-day  is  always  the  long- 
est day.*' 

"And  the  night  the  cook  goes  out  is  always 
[66] 


Brown  Eyes  and  Equinoxes 

the  longest  night/'  she  retorted,  catching  the 
spirit  of  the   game. 

"Some  day/'  I  threatened  her,  "the  earth  will 
stop  rotating  on  its  orbit,  or  its  axis,  or  what- 
ever it  is,  and  then  we  will  be  like  the  moon, 
divided  into  two  hostile  hemispheres,  one  per- 
petual day  and  the  other  eternal  night/* 

She  did  not  seem  alarmed.  "Yes,  and  I 
bet  I  know  which  one  you'll  emigrate  to,"  she 
said.  "But  how  about  the  equinoctial  gales? 
Why  should  there  be  gales  just  then?" 

I  had  forgot  about  the  equinoctial  gales,  and 
this  caught  me  unawares. 

"That  was  an  old  tradition  of  the  Phoenician 
mariners/'  I  said,  "but  the  invention  of  latitude 
and  longitude  made  them  unnecessary.  They 
have  fallen  into  disrepute.  Dead  reckoning 
killed  them." 

"And  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes?"  she 
asked,  turning  back  to  her  magazine. 

This  was  a  poser,  but  I  rallied  stoutly. 
"Well,"  I  said,  "you  see,  there  are  two  equi- 
noxes a  year,  the  vernal  and  the  autumnal. 
They  are  well  known  by  coal  dealers.  The 
first  one  is  when  he  delivers  the  coal  and  the 
second  is  when  he  gets  paid.  Two  of  them  a 
year,  you  see,  in  the  course  of  a  million  years 
or  so,  makes  quite  a  majestic  series.  That  is 
why  they  call  it  a  procession." 

[67] 


Mince  Pie 

Titania  looked  at  me  and  gradually  her  face 
broke  up  into  a  charming  aurora  borealis  of 
laughter. 

"I  don't  believe  you  know  any  more  about 
the  old  things  than  I  do/*  she  said. 

And  the  worst  of  it  is,  I  think  she  was  right. 


'[68]: 


163  INNOCENT  OLD  MEN 

I  FOUND  Titania  looking  severely  at  Ler 
watch,  which  is  a  queer  little  gold  disk 
about  the  size  of  a  waistcoat  button,  swinging 
under  her  chin  by  a  thin  golden  chain.  Tita- 
nia's  methods  of  winding,  setting  and  regu- 
lating that  watch  have  always  been  a  mystery 
to  me.  She  frequently  knows  what  the  right 
time  is,  but  how  she  deduces  it  from  the  data 
given  by  the  hands  of  her  timepiece  I  can't 
guess.  It*s  something  like  this  :  She  looks  at 
the  watch  and  notes  what  it  says.  Then  she 
deducts  ten  minutes,  because  she  remembers  it 
is  ten  minutes  fast.  Then  she  performs  some 
complicated  calculation  connected  with  when 
the  baby  had  his  bath,  and  how  long  ago  she 
heard  the  church  bells  chime;  to  this  result  she 
adds  five  minutes  to  allow  for.  leeway.  Then 
she  goes  to  the  phone  and  asks  Central  the 
time. 

"Hullo,*'  I  said;  "what's  wrong?" 
"I'm    wondering    about    this    daylight-saving 
business,"  she  said.     "You  know,  I  think  it's 
aU  a  piece  of  Bolshevik  propaganda  to  get  us 

[69] 


Mince  Pie 

confused  and  encourage  anarchy.  All  the 
women  in  Marathon  are  talking  about  it  and 
neglecting  their  knitting.  Junior*s  bath  was 
half  an  hour  late  today  because  Mrs.  Ben- 
venuto  called  me  up  to  talk  about  daylight 
saving.  She  says  her  cook  has  threatened  to 
leave  if  she  has  to  get  up  an  hour  earlier  in 
the  morning.  I  was  just  wondering  how  to 
adjust  my  watch  to  the  new  conditions." 

**It's  perfectly  simple/*  I  said.  "Put  your 
watch  ahead  one  hour,  and  then  go  through  the 
same  logarithms  you  always  do." 

"Put  it  ahead?"  asked  Titania.  "Mrs.  Bor- 
gia says  we  have  to  put  the  clock  bacJc  an  hour. 
She  is  fearfully  worried  about  it.  She  says 
suppose  she  has  something  in  the  oven  when 
the  clock  is  put  back,  it  will  be  an  hour  over- 
done and  burned  to  a  crisp  when  the  kitchen 
clock  catches  up  again." 

"Mrs.  Borgia  is  wrong/*  I  said.  "The  clocks 
are  to  be  put  ahead  one  hour.  At  2  o'clock  on 
Easter  morning  they  are  to  be  turned  on  to  3 
o'clock.  Mrs.  Borgia  certainly  won't  have  any- 
thing in  the  oven  at  that  time  of  night.  You 
see,  we  are  to  pretend  that  2  o'clock  is  really  3 
o'clock,  and  when  we  get  up  at  7  o'clock  it 
will  really  be  6  o'clock.  We  are  deliberately 
fooling  ourselves  in  order  to  get  an  hour  more 
of  daylight." 
[70] 


163  Innocent  Old  Men 

"I  have  an  idea,"  she  said,  "that  you  won*t 
get  up  at  7  that  morning." 

"It  is  quite  possible/'  I  said,  "because  I  in- 
tend to  stay  up  until  2  a.  m.  that  morning  in 
order  to  be  exactly  correct  in  changing  our 
timepieces.  No  one  shall  accuse  me  of  being 
a  time  slacker/* 

Titania  was  wrinkling  her  brow.  "But  how 
about  that  lost  hour?"  she  said.  "What  hap- 
pens to  it?  I  don't  see  how  we  can  just  throw 
an  hour  away  like  that.  Time  goes  on  just 
the  same.  How  can  we  afford  to  shorten  our 
lives  so  ruthlessly?  It's  murder,  that's  what 
it  is !  I  told  you  it  was  a  Bolshevik  plot.  Just 
think;  there  are  a  hundred  million  Americans. 
Moving  on  the  clock  that  way  brings  each  of 
us  one  hour  nearer  our  graves.  That  is  to 
say,  we  are  throwing  away  100,000,000  hours." 

She  seized  a  pencil  and  a  sheet  of  paper  and 
went  through  some  calculations. 

"There  are  8,760  hours  in  a  year/*  she  said, 
"Reckoning  seventy  years  a  lifetime,  there  ar^ 
613,200  hours  in  each  person's  life.  Now,  will 
you  please  divide  that  into  a  hundred  million 
for  me?     I'm  not  good  at  long  division.** 

With  docility  I  did  so,  and  reported  the  re- 
sult. 

"About  16S/*  I  said. 

"There  you  are!**  she  exclaimed  triumphant- 

[Ti] 


Mince  Pie 

iy.  "Throwing  away  all  that  perfectly  good 
time  amounts  simply  to  murdering  163  harm- 
less old  men  of  seventy,  or  326  able-bodied  men 
of  thirty-five,  or  1,630  innocent  little  children 
of  seven.  If  that  isn't  atrocity,  what  is?  I 
think  Mr.  Hoover  or  Admiral  Grayson,  or  some- 
body, ought  to  be  prosecuted.'* 

I  was  aghast  at  this  awful  result.  Then  an 
idea  struck  me,  and  I  took  the  pencil  and  be- 
gan to  figure  on  my  own  account. 

"Look  here,  Titania,*'  I  said.  "Not  so  fast. 
Moving  the  clock  ahead  doesn't  really  bring 
those  people  any  nearer  their  graves.  What  it 
does  do  is  bring  the  ratification  of  the  Peace 
Treaty  sooner,  which  is  a  fine  thing.  By  de- 
leting a  hundred  million  hours  we  shorten  Sena- 
tor Borah's  speeches  against  the  League  by 
11,410  years.     That's  very  encouraging." 

"According  to  that  way  of  reckoning,"  she 
said  with  sarcasm,  "Mr.  Borah's  term  must 
have   expired  about   11,000  years   ago." 

"My  dear  Titania,"  I  said,  "the  ways  of  the 
Government  may  seem  inscrutable,  but  we  have 
got  to  follow  them  with  faith.  If  Mr.  Wilson 
tells  us  to  murder  l63  fine  old  men  in  elastic- 
sided  boots  we  must  simply  do  it,  that's  all. 
Peace  is  a  dreadful  thing.  We  have  got  to  meet 
the  Germans  on  their  own  ground.  They 
adopted  this  daylisrht-saving  measure  years  ago. 
[72) 


163  Innocent  Old  Men 

They  call  it  Sonnenuntergangverderbenpraxis, 
I  believe.  After  all,  it  is  only  a  temporary 
measure,  because  in  the  fall,  when  the  daylight 
hours  get  shorter,  we  shall  have  to  turn  the 
clocks  back  a  couple  of  hours  in  order  to  com- 
pensate the  gas  and  electric  light  companies 
for  all  the  money  they  will  have  lost.  That 
will  bring  those  1 63  old  gentlemen  to  life  again 
and  double  their  remaining  term  of  years  to 
make  up  for  their  temporary  effacement.  They 
are  patriotic  hostages  to  Time  for  the  summer 
only.  You  must  remember  that  time  is  only  a 
philosophical  abstraction,  with  no  real  or  tangi- 
ble existence,  and  we  have  a  right  to  do  what- 
ever we  want  with  it." 

"I  will  remind  you  of  that,"  she  said,  "at 
getting-up  time  on  Sunday  morning.  I  still 
think  that  if  we  are  going  to  monkey  with  the 
clocks  at  all  it  would  be  better  to  turn  them 
backward  instead  of  forward.  Certainly  that 
would  bring  you  home  from  the  club  a  little 
earlier." 

**My  dear,"  I  said,  "we  are  in  the  Govern- 
ment's hands.  A  little  later  we  may  be  put  on 
time  rations,  just  as  we  are  on  food  rations. 
We  may  have  time  cards  to  encourage  thrift  in 
saving  time.  Every  time  we  save  an  hour  we 
will  get  a  little  stamp  to  show  for  it.  When  we 
fill  out  a  whole  card  we  will  be  entitled  to  call 

[73] 


Mince  Pie 

ourselves  a  month  younger  than  we  are.     Tell 
that  to  Mrs.  Borgia ;  it  will  reconcile  her." 

A  lusty  uproar  made  itself  heard  upstairs,, 
and  Titania  gave  a  little  scream.  "Heavens  \"  she 
cried.  "Here  I  am  talking  with  you  and  Jun- 
ior's bottle  is  half  an  hour  late.  I  don't  care 
what  Mr.  Wilson  does  to  the  clocks;  he  won't 
be  able  to  fool  Junior.  He  knows  when  it's 
time  for  meals.  Won't  you  call  up  Central 
and  find  out  the  exact  time?" 


[74] 


A  TRAGIC  SMELL  IN  MARATHON 

Marathon,  Pa.,  April  2. 

THIS  is  a  very  embarrassing  time  of  year 
for  us.  Every  morning  when  we  get  on 
the  8:13  train  at  Marathon  Bill  Stites  or  Fred 
Myers  or  Hank  Harris  or  some  other  groundsel 
philosopher  on  the  Cinder  and  Bloodshot  be- 
gins to  chivvy  us  about  our  garden.  "Have  you 
planted  anything  yet.^"  they  say.  "Have  you 
put  litmus  paper  in  the  soil  to  test  it  for  lime, 
potash  and  phosphorus?  Have  you  got  a  har- 
row?" 

That  sort  of  thing  bothers  us,  because  our 
ideas  of  cultivation  are  very  primitive.  We  did 
go  to  the  newsstand  at  the  Reading  Terminal 
and  try  to  buy  a  Litmus  paper,  but  the  agent 
didn't  have  any.  He  says  he  doesn't  carry  the 
Jersey  papers.  So  we  buried  some  old  copies 
of  the  Philistine  in  the  garden,  thinking  that 
would  strengthen  up  the  soil  a  bit.  This  busi- 
ness of  nourishing  the  soil  seems  grotesque.  It's 
hard  enough  to  feed  the  family,  let  alone  throw- 
ing away  good  money  on  feeding  the  land.  Our 
idea  about  soil  is  that  it  ought  to  feed  itself. 

[76] 


Mince  Pie 

Our  garden  ought  to  be  lusty  enough  to  raise 
the  few  beans  and  beets  and  blisters  we  aspire 
to.  We  have  been  out  looking  at  the  soil.  It 
looks  fairly  potent  and  certainly  it  goes  a  long 
way  down.  There  are  quite  a  lot  of  broken 
magnesia  bottles  and  old  shinbones  scattered 
through  itj  and  they  ought  to  help  along.  The 
topsoil  and  the  humus  may  be  a  little  mixed, 
but  we  are  not  going  to  sort  them  out  by  hand. 

Our  method  is  to  go  out  at  twilight  the  first 
Sunday  in  April,  about  the  time  the  cutworms 
go  to  roost,  and  take  a  sharp-pointed  stick.  We 
draw  lines  in  the  ground  with  this  stick,  pref- 
erably in  a  pleasant  geometrical  pattern  that 
will  confuse  the  birds  and  other  observers.  It 
is  important  not  to  do  this  until  twilight,  so 
that  no  robins  or  insects  can  watch  you.  Then 
we  go  back  in  the  house  and  put  on  our  old 
trousers,  the  pair  that  has  holes  in  each  pocket. 
We  fill  the  pockets  with  the  seed  we  want  to 
plant  and  loiter  slowly  along  the  grooves  we 
have  made  in  the  earth.  The  seed  sifts  down 
the  trousers  legs  and  spreads  itself  in  the 
furrow  far  better  than  any  mechanical  drill 
could  do  it.  The  secret  of  gardening  is  to 
stick  to  nature*s  old  appointed  ways.  Then  we 
read  a  chapter  of  Bernard  Shaw  aloud,  by 
candle  light  or  lantern  light.  As  soon  as  they 
hear  the  voice  of  Shaw  all  the  vegetables  dig 
[76] 


A  Tragic  Smell  in  Marathon 

themselves  in.  This  saves  going  all  along  the 
rows  with  a  shingle  to  pat  down  the  topsoil 
or  the  humus  or  the  magnesia  bottles  or  what- 
ever else  is  uppermost. 

Fred  says  that  certain  vegetables — ^kohl-rabi 
and  colanders,  we  think — extract  nitrogen  from 
the  air  and  give  it  back  to  the  soil.  It  may 
be  so,  but  what  has  that  to  do  with  us?  If 
our  soil  can't  keep  itself  supplied  with  nitro- 


gen, that's  its  lookout.  We  don't  need  the 
nitrogen  in  the  air.  The  baby  isn't  old  enough 
to  have  warts  yet. 

Hank  says  it's  no  use  watering  the  garden 
from  above.  He  says  that  watering  from  above 
lures  the  roots  toward  the  surface  and  next 
day  the  hot  sun  kills  them.  The  answer  to 
that  is  that  the  rain  comes  from  above,  doesn't 
it?  Roots  have  learned  certain  habits  in  the 
past  million  years  and  we  haven't  time  to  teach 
them  to  duck  when  it  rains.     Hank  has  some 


Mince  Pie 

irrigation  plan  which  involves  sinking  tomata 
cans  in  the  ground  and  filling  them  with  wa- 
ter. 

Bill  says  it's  dangerous  to  put  arsenic  on  the 
plants,  because  it  may  kill  the  cook.  He  says 
nicotine  or  tobacco  dust  is  far  better.  The 
answer  to  that  is  that  we  never  put  fertilizers 
on  our  garden,  anyway.  If  we  want  to  kill 
the  cook  there  is  a  more  direct  method,  and  we 
reserve  the  tobacco  for  ourself.  No  cutworm 
shall  get  a  blighty  one  from  our  cherished  baccy 
pouch. 

Fred  says  we  ought  to  have  a  wheel-bar- 
row; Hank  swears  by  a  mulching  iron;  Bill  is 
all  for  cold  frames.  All  three  say  that  helle- 
bore is  the  best  thing  for  sucking  insects.  We 
echo  the  expletive,  with  a  different  applica- 
tion. 

You  see,  we  have  no  instinct  for  gardening. 
Some  fellows,  like  Bill  Stites,  have  a  divinely 
implanted  zest  for  the  propagation  of  chard 
and  rhubarb  and  self-blanching  celery  and 
kohl-rabi;  they  are  kohl-rabid,  we  might  say. 
They  knoTi?  just  what  to  do  when  they  see  a 
weed;  they  can  assassinate  a  weevil  by  just 
looking  at  it.  But  weevils  and  cabbage  worms 
are  unterrified  by  us.  We  can't  tell  a  weed 
from  a  young  onion.  We  never  mulched  any- 
[78] 


A  Tragic  Smell  in  Marathon 

thing  in  our  life;  we  wouldn't  know  how  to 
begin. 

But  the  deuce  of  it  is,  public  opinion  says 
that  we  must  raise  a  garden.  It  is  no  use  to 
hire  a  man  to  do  it  for  us.  However  badly  we 
may  do  it,  patriotism  demands  that  we  monkey 
around  with  a  garden  of  our  own.  We  may  get 
bitten  by  a  snapping  bean  or  routed  by  a  ruta- 
baga or  infected  by  a  parsnip.  But  with  Bill 
and  those  fellows  at  our  heels  we  have  just 
got  to  face  it.     Hellebore! 

What  we  want  to  know  is,  How  do  you  ever 
find  out  all  these  things  about  vegetables?  We 
bought  an  ounce  of  tomato  seeds  in  despera- 
tion, and  now  Fred  says  **one  ounce  of  tomato 
seeds  will  produce  3,000  plants.  You  should 
have  bought  two  dozen  plants  instead  of  the 
seed."  How  does  he  know  those  things  ?  Hank 
says  beans  are  very  delicate  and  must  not  be 
handled  while  they  are  wet  or  they  may  get 
rusty.  Again  we  ask,  how  does  he  know? 
Where  do  they  learn  these  matters?  Bill  says 
that  stones  draw  out  the  moisture  from  the 
soil  and  every  stone  in  the  garden  should  be 
removed  by  hand  before  we  plant.  We  offered 
him  twenty  cents  an  hour  to  do  it. 

The  most  tragic  odor  in  the  world  hangs 
over  Marathon  these  days;  the  smell  of  fresh- 
ly spaded  earth.     It  is  extolled  by  the  poets 

[79] 


Mince  Pie 

and  all  those  happy  sons  of  the  pavement  wha 
know  nothing  about  it.  But  here  are  we,  wha 
hardly  know  a  loam  from  a  lentil,  breaking  our 
back  over  seed  catalogues.  Public  opinion  may 
compel  us  to  raise  vegetables,  but  we  are  going 
to  go  about  it  our  own  way.  If  the  stones  are 
going  to  act  like  werewolves  and  suck  the  mois- 
ture from  our  soil,  let  them  do  so.  We  don't 
believe  in  thwarting  nature.  Maybe  it  will  be  a 
very  wet  summer  and  we  shall  have  the  laugh 
on  Bill,  who  has  carted  away  all  his  stones. 

And  we  should  just  like  to  see  Bill  Stites 
write  a  poem.  We  bet  it  wouldn't  look  as  much 
like  a  poem  as  our  beans  look  like  beans.  And 
as  for  Hank  and  Fred,  they  wouldn't  even  know 
how  to  begin  to  plant  a  poem! 


[80] 


BULLIED  BY  THE  BIRDS 

Marathon,  Pa.,  May  2. 

I  INSIST  that  the  place  for  birds  is  in  the 
air  or  on  the  bushy  tops  of  trees  or  on 
smooth-shaven  lawns.  Let  them  twitter  and 
strut  on  the  greens  of  golf  courses  and  intimi- 
date the  tired  business  men.  Let  them  peck 
cinders  along  the  railroad  track  and  keep  the 
trains  waiting.  But  really  they  have  no  right 
to  take  possession  of  a  man's  house  as  they 
have  mine. 

The  nesting  season  is  a  time  of  tyranny  and 
oppression  for  those  who  live  in  Marathon.  The 
birds  are  upon  us  like  Hindenburg  in  Belgium. 
We  go  about  on  tiptoe,  speaking  in  whispers, 
for  fear  of  annoying  them.  It  is  all  the  fault 
of  the  Marathon  Bird  Club,  which  has  offered 
all  sorts  of  inducements  to  the  fowls  of  the 
air  to  come  and  live  in  our  suburb,  quite  for- 
getting that  humble  commuters  have  to  live 
there,  too.  Birds  have  moved  all  the  way 
from  Wynnewood  and  Ambler  and  Chestnut 
Hill  to  enjoy  the  congenial  air  of  Marathon 
and  the  informing  little  pamphlets  of  our  club, 

[81] 


Mince  Pie 

telling  them  just  what  to  eat  and  which  houses 
offer  the  best  hospitality.  All  our  dwellings 
are  girt  about  with  little  villas  made  of  con- 
densed milk  boxes,  but  the  feathered  tyrants 
have  grown  too  pernickety  to  inhabit  these. 
They  come  closer  still,  and  make  our  homes 
their  own.     They  take   the   grossest  liberties. 

I  am  fond  of  birds,  but  I  think  the  line 
must  be  drawn  somewhere.  The  clothes-line, 
for  instance.  The  other  day  Titania  sent  me 
out  to  put  up  a  new  clothesline;  I  found  that 
a  shrike  or  a  barn  swallow  or  some  other  veery 
liad  built  a  nest  in  the  clothespin  basket.  That 
means  we  won't  be  able  to  hang  out  our  laun- 
dry in  the  fresh  Monday,  air  and  equally  fresh 
Monday  sunshine  until  the  nesting  season  is 
over. 

Then  there  is  a  gross,  fat,  indiscreet  robin 
that  has  taken  a  home  in  an  evergreen  or 
mimosa  or  banyan  tree  just  under  our  veranda 
railing.  It  is  an  absurdly  exposed,  almost  in- 
decently exposed  position,  for  the  confiden- 
tial family  business  she  intends  to  carry  on. 
The  iceman  and  the  butcher  and  the  boy  who 
brings  up  the  Sunday  ice  cream  from  the 
apothecary  can't  help  seeing  those  three  big 
blue  egjgs  she  has  laid.  But,  because  she  has 
nester  there  for  the  last  three  springs,  while 
±he  -use  was  unoccupied,  she  thinks  she  has 
[82] 


Bullied  by  the  Birds 

a  perpetual  lease  on  that  bush.  She  hotly  re« 
sents  the  iceman  and  the  butcher  and  the 
apothecary's  boy,  to  say  nothing  of  me.  So 
these  worthy  merchants  have  to  trail  round  a 
circuitous  route,  violating  the  neutral  ground 
of  a  neighbor,  in  order  to  reach  the  house 
from  behind  and  deliver  their  wares  through 
the  cellar.    We  none  of  us  dare  use  the  veranda 


at  all  for  fear  of  frightening  her,  and  I  have 
given  up  having  the  morning  paper  delivered 
at  the  house  because  she  made  such  shrill  pro- 
test. 

Frightening  her,  do  I  say?  Nay,  it  is  me 
who  are  frightened.  I  go  round  to  the  side 
of  the  house  to  prune  my  benzine  bushes  or 
to  plant  a  mess  of  spinach  and  a  profane  star- 
ling or  woodpecker  bustles  off  her  nest  with 
shrewish    outcry    and    lingers    nearby    to    rail 

[83] 


Mince  Pie 

at  me.  Abashed,  I  stealthily  scuffle  back  to 
get  a  spade  out  of  the  tool  bin  and  again  that 
shrill  scream  of  anger  and  outraged  mother- 
hood. A  throstle  or  a  whippoorwill  is  raising 
a  family  in  the  gutter  spout  over  the  back 
kitchen.  I  go  into  the  bathroom  to  shave  and 
Titania  whispers  sharply,  **You  mustn't  shave 
in  there.  There's  a  tomtit  nesting  in  the  shut- 
ter hinge  and  the  light  from  your  shaving  mir- 
ror will  make  the  poor  little  birds  crosseyed 
when  they're  hatched."  I  try  to  shave  in  the 
dining-room  and  I  find  a  sparrow's  nest  on 
the  window  sill.  Finally  I  do  my  toilet  in 
the  coal  bin,  even  though  there  is  a  young 
squeaking  bat  down  there.  A  bat  is  half  mouse 
anyway,  so  Titania  has  less  compassion  for  its 
feelings.  Even  if  that  bat  grows  up  bow-legged 
on  account  of  premature  excitement,  I  have  to 
shave  somewhere. 

We  can't  play  croquet  at  this  time  of  year, 
because  the  lawn  must  be  kept  clear  for  the 
robins  to  quarry  out  worms.  The  sound  of  mal- 
let and  ball  frightens  the  worms  and  sends 
them  underground,  and  then  it's  harder  for 
the  robins  to  find  them.  I  suppose  we  really 
ought  to  keep  a  stringed  orchestra  playing  in 
the  garden  to  entice  the  worms  to  the  surface. 
We  have  given  up  frying  onions  because  the 
mother  robins  don't  like  the  odor  while  they're 
[84] 


Bullied  by  the  Birds 

raising  a  family.  I  love  my  toast  crusts,  but 
Titania  takes  them  away  from  me  for  the 
blackbirds.  "Now/'  she  says,  "they're  raising 
a  family.     You  must  be  generous.'* 

If  my  garden  doesn't  amount  to  anything 
this  year  the  birds  will  be  my  alibi.  Titania 
makes  me  do  my  gardening  in  rubber-soled 
shoes  so  as  not  to  disturb  the  birds  when  they 
are  going  to  bed.  (They  begin  yelping  at  4 
a.  m.  right  outside  the  window  and  never  think 
of  my  slumbers.)  The  other  evening  I  put 
on  my  planting  trousers  and  was  about  to  sow 
a  specially  fine  pea  I  had  brought  home  from 
town  when  Titania  made  signs  from  the  win- 
dow. "You  simply  mustn't  wear  those  trousers 
around  the  house  in  nesting  season.  Don't  you 
know  the  birds  are  very  sensitive  just  now?** 
And  we  have  been  paying  board  for  our  cat  on 
Long  Island  for  a  whole  year  because  the  birds 
wouldn't  like  his  society  and  plebeian  ways. 

Marathon  has  come  to  a  pretty  pass,  indeed, 
when  the  commuters  are  to  be  dispossessed  in 
this  way  by  a  lot  of  birds,  orioles  and  tom- 
tits and  yellow-bellied  nuthatches.  Some  of 
these  days  a  wren  will  take  it  into  its  head  to 
build  a  nest  on  the  railroad  track  and  we'll 
ill  have  to  walk  to  town.  Or  a  chicken  hawk 
will  settle  in  our  icebox  and  we*ll  starve  to 
deatli. 

[85] 


Mince  Pie 

As  I  have  said  before,  I  believe  in  keeping 
nature  in  its  proper  place.  Birds  belong  in 
trees.  I  don't  go  twittering  and  fluffing  about 
in  oaks  and  chestnuts,  perching  on  the  birds' 
nest  steps  and  getting  in  their  way.  And  why 
should  some  swarthy  robin,  be  she  never  so  ma- 
tronly, swear  at  me  if  I  set  foot  on  my  own 
front  porch? 


186] 


A  MESSAGE  FOR  BOONVILLE 

WHEN  corncob  pipes  went  up  from  a 
nickel  to  six  cents,  smoking  traditions 
tottered.  That  was  a  year  or  more  ago,  but 
one  can  still  recall  the  indignation  written  on 
the  faces  of  nicotine-soaked  gaffers  who  had 
been  buying  cobs  at  a  jitney  ever  since  Wash- 
ington used  one  to  keep  warm  at  Valley  Forge. 
It  was  the  supreme  test  of  our  determination 
to  win  the  war:  the  price  of  Missouri  meer- 
schaums went  up  20  per  cent  and  there  was 
no  insurrection. 

Yesterday  we  went  out  to  buy  our  annual 
corncob,  and  were  agreeably  surprised  to  learn 
that  the  price  is  still  six  cents;  but  our  friend 
the  tobacconist  said  that  it  may  go  up  again 
soon.  We  took  the  treasure,  gleaming  yellow 
with  fresh  varnish,  back  to  our  kennel,  and  we 
are  smoking  it  as  we  set  down  these  words.  A 
corncob  is  sadly  hot  and  raw  until  it  is  well 
sooted,  but  the  ultimate  flavor  is  worth  perse- 
cution. 

The  corncob  pipes  we  always  buy  come  from 
Boonville,  Mo.,  and  we  don't  see  why  we 
shouldn't  blow  a  little  whiff  of  affection  and 

[87] 


Mince  Pie 

gratitude  toward  that  excellent  town.  More- 
over, Boonville  celebrated  its  centennial  re- 
cently: it  was  founded  in  1818.  If  the  map  is 
to  be  believed,  it  is  on  the  southern  hank  of 
the  Missouri  River,  which  is  there  spanned  by 
a  very  fine  bridge;  it  is  reached  by  two  rail- 
roads (Missouri  Pacific  and  M.,  K.  and  T.)  and 
stands  on  a  bluff  100  feet  above  the  water.  Ac- 
cording to  the  two  works  of  reference  nearest 
to  our  desk,  its  population  is  either  4252  or 
4377.  Perhaps  the  former  census  omits  the 
125  men  of  the  town  who  are  so  benighted  as 
to  smoke  briars  or  clays. 

Delightful  town  of  Boonville,  seat  of  Cooper 
County,  you  are  well  named.  How  great  a 
boon  you  have  conferred  upon  a  troubled  world ! 
Long  after  more  ambitious  towns  have  faded 
in  the  memory  of  man  your  quiet  and  soothing 
gift  to  humanity  will  make  your  name  blessed. 
I  like  to  imagine  your  shady  streets,  drows- 
ing in  the  summer  sun,  and  the  rural  philoso- 
phers sitting  on  the  verandas  of  your  hotels  or 
on  the  benches  of  Harley  Park  ("comprising 
^fteen  acres" — New  International  Encyclo- 
pedia), looking  out  across  the  brown  river  and 
puffing  clouds  of  sweet  gray  reek.  Down  by 
the  livery  stable  on  Main  street  (there  must 
be  a  livery  stable  on  Main  street)  I  can  see  the 
old  creaky,  cane-bottomed  chairs  (with  seats 
[88] 


A  Message  for  Boonville 

punctured  by  too  much  philosophy)  tilted 
against  the  sycamore  trees^  ready  for  the  after- 
noon gossip  and  shag  tobacco.  I  can  imagine 
the  small  boys  of  Boonville  fishing  for  catfish 
from  the  piers  of  the  bridge  or  bathing  down 
by  the  steamboat  dock  (if  there  is  one),  and 
yearning  for  the  day  when  they,  too,  will  be 
grown  up  and  old  enough  to  smoke  corncobs. 
What  is  the  subtle  magic  of  a  corncob  pipe? 


It  is  never  as  sweet  or  as  mellow  as  a  well- 
seasoned  briar,  and  yet  it  has  a  fascination  all 
its  own.  It  is  equally  dear  to  those  who  work 
hard  and  those  who  loaf  with  intensity.  When 
you  put  your  nose  to  the  blackened  mouth  of 
the  hot  cob  its  odor  is  quite  different  from  that 
fragrance  of  the  crusted  wooden  bowl.  There 
is  a  faint  bitterness  in  it,  a  sour,  plaintive 
aroma.  It  is  a  pipe  that  seems  to  call  aloud 
for  the  accompaniment  of  beer  and  earnest 
argument  on  factional  political  matters.     It  is 

[89] 


Mince  Pie 

also  the  pipe  for  solitary  vigils  of  hard  and 
concentrated  work.  It  is  the  pipe  that  a  man 
keeps  in  the  drawer  of  his  desk  for  savage 
hours  of  extra  toil  after  the  stenographer  has 
powdered  her  nose  and  gone  home. 

A  corncob  pipe  is  a  humble  badge  of  philoso- 
phy, an  evidence  of  tolerance  and  even  humor. 
It  requires  patience  and  good  cheer,  for  it  is 
slow  to  "break  in."  Those  who  meditate 
bestial  and  brutal  designs  against  the  weak 
and  innocent  do  not  smoke  it.  Probably  Hin- 
denburg  never  saw  one.  Missouri's  reputation 
for  incredulity  may  be  due  to  the  corncob  habit. 
One  who  is  accustomed  to  consider  an  argu- 
ment over  a  burning  nest  of  tobacco,  with  the 
smoke  fuming  upward  in  a  placid  haze,  will  not 
accept  any  dogma  too  immediately. 

There  is  a  singular  affinity  among  those  who 
smoke  corncobs.  A  Missouri  meerschaum 
whose  bowl  is  browned  and  whose  fiber  stem  is 
frayed  and  stringy  with  biting  betrays  a  medi- 
tative and  reasonable  owner.  He  will  have 
pondered  all  aspects  of  life  and  be  equally 
ready  to  denounce  any  of  theni,  but  without 
bitterness.  If  you  see  a  man  on  a  street  cor- 
ner smoking  a  cob  it  will  be  safe  to  ask  him  to 
watch  the  baby  a  minute  while  you  slip  around 
the  corner.  You  would  even  be  safe  in  asking 
[90] 


A  Message  for  Boonville 

him  to  lend  you  a  five.     He  will  be  safe,  too, 
because  he  won't  have  it. 

Think^  therefore,  of  the  charm  of  a  town 
where  corncob  pipes  are  the  chief  industry. 
Think  of  them  stacked  up  in  bright  yellow 
piles  in  the  warehouse.  Think  of  the  warm 
sun  and  the  wholesome  sweetness  of  broad  acres 
that  have  grown  into  the  pith  of  the  cob.  Think 
of  the  bright-eyed  Missouri  maidens  who  have 
turned  and  scooped  and  varnished  and  packed 
them.  Think  of  the  airy  streets  and  wide  pave- 
ments of  Boonville,  and  the  corner  drug  stores 
with  their  shining  soda  fountains  and  grape- 
juice  bottles.  Think  of  sitting  out  on  that 
bluff  on  a  warm  evening,  watching  the  broad 
shimmer  of  the  river  slipping  down  from  the 
sunset,  and  smoking  a  serene  pipe  while  the 
local  flappers  walk  in  the  coolness  wearing 
crisp,  swaying  gingham  dresses.  That's  the 
kind  of  town  we  like  to  think  about. 


[91] 


MAKING   MARATHON   SAFE   FOR   THE 
URCHIN 

THE  Urchin  and  I  have  been  strolling  about 
Marathon  on  Sunday  mornings  for  more 
than  a  year,  but  not  until  the  gasolineless  Sab- 
baths supervened  were  we  really  able  to  ex- 
amine the  village  and  see  what  it  is  like.  Pre- 
viously we  had  been  kept  busy  either  dodging 
motors  or  admiring  them  as  they  sped  by. 
Their  rich  dazzle  of  burnished  enamel,  the 
purring  hum  of  their  great  tires,  evokes  ap- 
plause from  the  Urchin.  He  is  learning,  as 
he  watches  those  flashing  chariots,  that  life 
truly  is  almost  as  vivid  as  the  advertisements 
in  the  Ladies*  Home  Journal,  where  the  shim- 
mer of  earthly  pageant  first  was  presented  to 
him. 

Marathon  is  a  village  so  genteel  and  comely 
that  the  Urchin  and  I  would  like  to  have  some 
pictures  of  it  for  future  generations,  particu- 
larly as  we  see  it  on  an  autumn  morning  when, 
as  I  say,  the  motors  are  kenneled  and  the  land- 
scape has  ceased  to  vibrate.  In  the  douce  be- 
nignance  of  equinoctial  sunshine  we  gaze  about 
[92] 


Making  Marathon  Safe  for  the  Urchin 

lis  with  eyes  of  inventory.  Where  my  obser- 
vation errs  by  too  much  sentiment  the  Urchin 
checks  me  by  his  cooler  power  of  ratiocination. 

Marathon  is  a  suburban  Xanadu  gently 
caressed  by  the  train  service  of  the  Cinder  and 
Bloodshot.  It  may  be  recognized  as  an  aristo- 
cratic and  patrician  stronghold  by  the  fact  that 
while  luxuries  are  readily  obtainable  (for  in- 
stance, banana  splits,  or  the  latest  novel  by 
Enoch  A.  Bennett),  necessaries  are  had  only 
by  prayer  and  advowson.  The  drug  store  will 
deliver  ice  cream  to  your  very  refrigerator,  but 
it  is  impossible  to  get  your  garbage  collected. 
The  cook  goes  off  for  her  Thursday  evening 
in  a  taxi,  but  you  will  have  to  mend  the  roof, 
stanch  the  plumbing  and  curry  the  furnace  with 
your  own  hands.  There  are  ten  trains  to  take 
you  to  town  of  an  evening,  but  only  two  to 
bring  you  home.  Yet  going  to  town  is  a  luxury, 
coming  home  is  a  necessity.  The  supply  of 
grape  juice  seems  almost  unlimited,  yet  coal  is 
to  be  had  catch-as-catch-can. 

Another  proof  that  Marathon  is  patrician  at 
heart  is  that  nothing  is  known  by  its  right 
name!  The  drug  store  is  a  "pharmacy,"  Sun- 
day is  "the  Sabbath,"  a  house  is  a  "residence," 
a  debt  is  a  "balance  due  on  bill  rendered."  A 
girls'  school  is  a  "young  ladies'  seminary."  A 
Marathon  man  is  not  drafted,  he  is  "inducted 

[93] 


Mince  Pie 

into  selective  service."  And  the  railway  sta- 
tion has  a  porte  cochere  (with  the  correct  ac- 
cent) instead  of  a  carriage  entrance.  A  fur- 
nace is  (how  erroneously!)  called  a  "heater." 
Marathon  people  do  not  die — they  "pass  away." 
Even  the  cobbler,  good  fellow,  has  caught  the 
trick;  he  calls  his  shop  the  "Italo- American 
Shoe  Hospital.'* 

This  is  an  innocent  masquerade!  If  Mara- 
thon prefers  not  to  call  a  flivver  a  flivver,  I 
shall  not  expostulate.  And  yet  this  quaint  sub- 
terfuge should  not  be  carried  quite  so  far. 
Stone  walls  are  made  for  sunny  lounging;  yet 
stone  walls  in  Marathon  are  built  with  un- 
even vertical  projections  to  discourage  the 
sedentary.  Nothing  is  more  delightful  than 
a  dog;  but  there  are  no  dogs  in  Marathon. 
They  are  all  airedales  or  spaniels  or  mastiffs. 
If  an  ordinary  dog  should  wag  his  tail  up  our 
street  the  airedales  would  cut  him  dead.  Bless 
me.  Nature  herself  has  taken  to  the  same  in- 
sincerity. The  landscape  round  Marathon  is 
lovely,  but  it  has  itself  well  in  hand.  The  hills 
all  pretend  to  be  gentle  declivities.  There  is  a 
beautiful  little  sheet  of  water,  reflecting  the 
trailery  of  willows,  a  green  salute  to  the  eye. 
In  a  robuster  community  it  would  be  a  swim- 
ming hole — but  with  us,  an  ornamental  lake' 
Only  in  one  spot  has  Nature  forgotten  her- 
[94] 


Making  Marathon  Safe  for  the  Urchin 

self  and  been  so  brusque  and  rough  as  to 
jut  up  a  very  sizable  cliff.  This  is  the  loveliest 
thing  in  Marathon:  sunlight  and  shadow  break 
and  angle  in  cubist  magnificence  among  the 
oddly  veined  knobs  and  prisms  of  brown  stone. 
Yet  this  cliff  or  quarry  is  by  common  consent 
taboo  among  us.  It  is  our  indelicacy,  our  in- 
decency. Such  "residences"  as  are  near  mod- 
estly turn  their  kitchens  toward  it.  Only  the 
blacksmith  and  the  gas  tanks  are  hardy  enough 
to  face  this  nakedness  of  Mother  Earth — they, 
and  excellent  Pat  Lemon,  Marathon's  humblest 
and  blackest  citizen,  who  contemplates  that 
rugged  and  honest  beauty  as  he  tills  his  gar- 
den on  the  land  abandoned  by  squeamish  burgh- 
ers. That  is  our  Aceldama,  our  Potter's  Field, 
only  approached  by  the  athletic,  who  keep  their 
eyes  from  Nature's  indiscretion  by  vigorous  sets 
of  tennis  in  the  purple  shadow  of  the  cliff. 

Life  is  queerly  inverted  in  Marathon.  Na- 
ture has  been  so  bullied  and  repressed  that  she 
fawns  about  us  timidly.  No  well-conducted 
suburban  shrubbery  would  think  of  assuming 
autumn  tints  before  the  ladies  have  got  into 
their  fall  fashions.  Indeed  none  of  our  chaste 
trees  will  even  shed  their  leaves  while  any  one 
is  watching;  and  they  crouch  modestly  in  the 
shade  of  our  massive  garages.  They  have  been 
taught  their  place.     In  Marathon  it  is  a  worse 

[95] 


Mince  Pie 

sin  to  have  your  lawn  uncut  than  to  have  your 
books  or  your  hair  uncut.  I  have  been  aware 
of  indignant  eyes  because  I  let  my  back  gar- 
den run  wild.  And  yet  I  flatter  myself  it  was 
not  mere  sloth.  No!  I  want  the  Urchin  to 
see  what  this  savage,  tempestuous  world  is  like. 
What  preparation  for  life  is  a  village  where 
Nature  comes  to  heel  like  a  spaniel?  When  a 
thunderstorm  disorganizes  our  electric  lights 
for  an  hour  or  so  we  feel  it  a  personal  affront. 
Let  my  rearward  plot  be  a  deep-tangled  wild- 
wood  where  the  happy  Urchin  may  imagine 
something  more  ferocious  lurking  than  a  posse 
of  radishes.  Indeed,  I  hardly  know  whether 
Marathon  is  a  safe  place  to  bring  up  a  child. 
How  can  he  learn  the  horrors  of  drink  in  a  vil- 
lage where  there  is  no  saloon?  Or  the  sadness 
of  the  seven  deadly  sins  where  there  is  no 
movie?  Or  deference  to  his  betters  where  the 
chauffeurs,  in  their  withered  leather  legs,  drive 
limousines  to  the  drug  store  to  buy  expensive 
cigars,  while  their  employers  walk  to  the  sta- 
tion puffing  briar  pipes? 

I  had  been  hoping  that  the  war  would  knock 
some  of  this  topsy-turvy  nonsense  out  of  us. 
Maybe  it  has.  Sometimes  I  see  on  the  faces 
of  our  commuters  the  unaccustomed  agitation 
of  thought.  At  least  we  still  have  the  grace 
to  call  ourselves  a  suburb,  and  not   (what  we 

[96] 


Making  Marathon  Safe  for  the  Urchin 

fancy  ourselves)  a  superurb.  But  I  don't  like 
the  pretense  that  runs  like  a  jarring  note 
through  the  music  of  our  life.  Why  is  it  that 
those  who  are  doing  the  work  must  pretend 
they  are  not  doing  it;  and  those  not  doing  the 
work  pretend  that  they  are?  I  see  that  the 
motor  messenger  girls  who  drive  high-powered 
cars  wear  Sam  Browne  belts  and  heavy-soled 
boots,  whereas  the  stalwart  colored  wenches 
who  labor  along  the  tracks  of  the  Cinder  and 
Bloodshot  console  themselves  with  flimsy  waists 
and  light  slippers.  (A  fact!)  By  and  by  the 
Urchin  will  notice  these  things.  And  I  don't 
want  him  to  grow  up  the  kind  of  chap  who, 
instead  of  running  to  catch  a  train,  loiters 
gracefully  to  the  station  and  waits  to  be 
caught. 


[97] 


THE  SMELL  OF  SMELLS 

I  SMELT  it  this  morning — I  wonder  if  you 
know  the  smell  I  mean? 

It  had  rained  hard  during  the  night,  and 
trees  and  bushes  twinkled  in  the  sharp  early 
sunshine  like  ballroom  chandeliers.  As  soon 
as  I  stepped  out  of  doors  I  caught  that  faint 
but  unmistakable  musk  in  the  air;  that  dim, 
warm  sweetness.  It  was  the  smell  of  summer, 
so  wholly  different  from  the  crisp  tang  of 
spring. 

It  is  a  drowsy,  magical  waft  of  warmth  and 
fragrance.  It  comes  only  when  the  leaves  and 
vegetation  have  grown  to  a  certain  fullness  and 
juice,  and  when  the  sun  bends  in  his  orbit 
near  enough  to  draw  out  all  the  subtle  vapors 
of  field  and  woodland.  It  is  a  smell  that  rarely 
if  ever  can  be  discerned  in  the  city.  It  needs 
the  wider  air  of  the  unhampered  earth  for  its 
circulation   and   play. 

I  don't  know  just  why,  but  I  associate  that 

peculiar  aroma  of  summer  with  woodpiles  and 

barnyards.     Perhaps  because  in  the  area  of  a 

farmyard  the   sunlight  is  caught  and   focused 

[98] 


The  Smell  of  Smells 

and  glows  with  its  fullest  heat  and  radiance. 
And  it  is  in  the  grasp  of  the  relentless  sun 
that  growing  things  yield  up  their  innermost 
vitality  and  emanate  their  fragrant  essence.  I 
have  seen  fields  of  tobacco  under  a  hot  sun  that 
smelt  as  blithe  as  a  room  thick  with  blue  Ha- 
vana smoke.  I  remember  a  pile  of  birch  logs, 
heaped  up  behind  a  barn  in  Pike  County,  where 


^Y)*^ 


that  mellow  richness  of  summer  flowed  and 
quivered  like  a  visible  exhalation  in  the  air.  It 
is  the  goodly  soul  of  earth,  rendering  her  health 
and  sweetness  to  her  master,  the  sun. 

Every  one,  I  suppose,  who  is  a  fancier  of 
smells,  knows  this  blithe  perfume  of  the  sum- 
mer air  that  is  so  pleasant  to  the  nostril  almost 
any  fine  forenoon  from  mid-June  until  August. 
It  steals  pungently  through  the  blue  sparkle 
of  the  morning,  fading  away  toward  noon  when 
the  moistness  is  dried  out.     But  when  one  first 

[99] 


Mince  Pie 

issues  from  the  house  at  breakfast  time  it  is  at 
its  highest  savor.  Irresistibly  it  suggests  worms, 
and  a  tin  can  with  the  lid  jaggedly  bent  back, 
and  a  pitchfork  turning  up  the  earth  behind 
the  cow  stable.  Fishing  was  first  invented  when 
Adam  smelt  that  odor  in  the  air. 

The  first  fishing  morning — can't  you  imagine 
it!  Has  no  one  ever  celebrated  it  in  verse  or 
oils?  The  world  all  young  and  full  of  unmiti- 
gated sweetness;  the  Garden  of  Eden  bespan- 
gled with  the  early  dew;  Adam  scrabbling  up 
a  fistful  of  worms  and  hooking  them  on  a  bent 
thorn  and  a  line  of  twisted  pampas  grass; 
hurrying  down  to  the  branch  or  the  creek  or 
the  bayou  or  whatever  it  may  have  been ;  sitting 
down  on  a  brand-new  stump  that  the  devil  had 
put  there  to  tempt  him;  throwing  out  his  line; 
sitting  there  in  the  sun  dreaming  and  brood- 
ing. .  .  . 

And  then  a  tug,  a  twitch,  a  flurry  in  the 
clear  water  of  Eden,  a  pull,  a  splash,  and  the 
First  Fish  lay  on  the  grass  at  Adam's  foot.  Can 
you  imagine  his  sensations?  How  he  yelled  to 
Eve  to  come — look — see,  and  how  annoyed  he 
was  because  she  called  out  she  was  busy.  .  .  . 

Probably  it  was  in  that  moment  that  all  the 

bickerings  and  back-talk  of  husbands  and  wives 

originated;  when  Adam  called  to  Eve  to  come 

and  look  at  his  First  Fish  while  it  was  still  sil- 

[100] 


The  Smell  of  Smells 

ver  and  vivid  in  its  living  colors;  and  Eve  an- 
swered she  was  busy.  In  that  moment  were 
born  the  men's  clubs  and  the  women's  clubs  and 
the  pinochle  parties  and  being  detained  at 
the  office  and  Kelly  pool  and  all  the  other  de- 
vices and  stratagems  that  keep  men  and  women 
from  taking  their  amusements  together. 

Well,  I  didn't  mean  to  go  back  to  the  Gar- 
den of  Eden;  I  just  waited  to  say  that  sum- 
mer is  here  again,  even  though  the  almanac 
doesn't  vouch  for  it  until  the  21st.  Those  of 
you  who  are  fond  of  smells,  spread  your  nos- 
trils about  breakfast  time  tomorrow  morning 
and  see  if  you  detect  it. 


[101] 


A  JAPANESE  BACHELOR 

THE  first  obligation  of  one  who  lives  by 
writing  is  to  write  what  editors  will  buy. 
In  so  doing,  how  often  one  laments  that  one 
cannot  write  exactly  what  happens.  Suppose  I 
were  to  try  it — for  once! 

I  have  been  lying  on  the  bed — ^where  the 
landlady  has  put  a  dark  blue  spread,  instead 
of  the  white  one,  because  I  drop  my  tobacco 
ashes — smoking,  and  thinking  about  a  new 
friend  I  met  today.  His  name  is  Kenko,  a 
Japanese  bachelor  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
who  wrote  a  little  book  of  musings  which  has 
been  translated  under  the  title  "The  Miscellany 
of  a  Japanese  Priest.**  His  candid  reflections 
are  those  of  a  shrCjWd,  learned,  humane  and 
somewhat  misogynist  mind.  I  have  been  lying 
on  the  bed  because  his  book,  like  all  books  that 
make  one  ponder  deeply  on  human  destiny, 
causes  that  feeling  of  mind-sickness,  that  swim- 
ming pain  of  the  mental  faculties — or  is  it 
caused  by  too  much  strong  tobacco? 

My  acquaintance  with  Kenko  began  only  last 
night,  when  I  sat  in  bed  reading  Mr.  Raymond 
[102] 


A  Japanese  Bachelor 

Weaver's  very  pleasant  article  about  him  in  a 
recent  Bookman,  My  last  act  before  turning 
out  the  light  was  to  lay  the  magazine  on  the 
table,  open  at  Mr.  Weaver's  essay,  to  remind 
me  to  get  a  copy  of  Kenko  the  first  thing  this 
morning.  Happily  to-day  was  Saturday.  I 
don't  know  what  I  should  have  done  if  it  had 
been  Sunday.  I  felt  that  I  could  not  wait  an- 
other day  without  owning  that  book.  I  sus- 
pected it  was  a  good  deal  in  the  mood  of  an- 
other bachelor,  an  Anglo-American  Caleb  of 
to-day — Mr.  Logan  Pearsall  Smith,  whose 
whimsical  "Trivia"  belongs  on  the  same  shelf. 

This  morning  I  tried  to  argue  myself  out 
of  the  decision.  It  may  be  a  very  expensive 
book,  I  thought;  it  may  cost  two  or  three  dol- 
lars; I  have  been  spending  a  lot  of  money  late- 
ly, and  I  certainly  ought  to  buy  some  new  un- 
dershirts. Moreover,  this  has  been  a  bad  week; 
I  have  never  written  those  paragraphs  I  prom- 
ised a  certain  editor,  and  I  haven't  paid  the 
rent  yet.  Why  not  try  to  find  the  book  at  a 
library.^  But  I  knew  the  only  library  where 
I  would  have  any  chance  of  finding  Kenko 
would  be  the  big  pile  at  Fifth  avenue  and 
Forty-second  street,  and  I  could  not  bear  the 
thought  of  having  to  read  that  book  without 
smoking.     I  felt  instinctively   (from  what  Mr, 

[103] 


Mince  Pie 

Weaver  had  written)  that  it  was  the  kind  of 
book  that  requires  a  pipe. 

Well,  I  thought,  I  won't  decide  this  too 
hastily;  I'll  walk  down  to  the  post  office  (four 
blocks)  and  make  up  my  mind  on  the  way.  I 
knew  already,  however,  that  if  I  didn't  go 
downtown  for  that  book  it  would  bother  me  all 
day  and  ruin  my  work. 

I  walked  down  to  the  post  office  (to  mail  to 
an  editor  a  sonnet  I  thought  fairly  well  of)  say- 
ing to  myself:  That  book  is  imported  from 
England,  it  may  be  a  big  book,  it  may  even 
cost  four  dollars.  How  much  better  to  exhibit 
the  stoic  tenacity  of  all  great  men,  go  back  to 
my  hall  bedroom  (which  I  was  temporarily  oc- 
cupying) and  concentrate  on  matters  in  hand. 
What  right,  I  said,  has  a  Buddhist  recluse,  born 
either  in  1281  or  1283,  to  harass  me  so?  But 
I  knew  in  my  heart  that  the  matter  was  already 
decided.  I  walked  back  to  the  corner  of  Hall- 
bedroom  street,  and  stood  vacillating  at  the 
newsstand,  pretending  to  glance  over  the  pa- 
pers. But  across  six  centuries  the  insistent 
ghost  of  Kenko  had  me  in  its  grip.  Annoyed, 
and  with  a  sense  of  chagrin,  I  hurried  to  the 
subway. 

In  the  dimly  lit  vestibule  of  the  subway  car, 
a  boy  of  sixteen  or  so  sat  on  an  up-ended  suit- 
case, plunged  in  a  book.  I  can  never  resist 
[104] 


A  Japanese  Bachelor 

the  temptation  to  try  to  see  what  books  other 
people  are  reading.  This  innocent  curiosity 
has  led  me  into  many  rudenesses,  for  I  am 
short-sighted  and  have  to  stare  very  close  to 
make  out  the  titles.  And  usually  the  people 
who  read  books  on  trolleys,  subways  and  fer- 
ries are  women.  How  often  I  have  stalked 
them  warily,  trying  to  identify  the  volume 
without  seeming  too  intrusive.  That  weakness 
deserves  an  essay  in  itself.  It  has  led  me  into 
surprising  adventures.  But  in  this  case  my 
quarry  was  easy.  The  lad — I  judged  him  a 
boarding  school  boy  going  back  to  school  after 
the  holidays — ^was  so  absorbed  in  his  reading 
that  it  was  easy  to  thrust  my  face  over  his 
shoulder  and  see  the  running  head  on  the  page — 
"The  Light  That  Failed." 

I  left  the  subway  at  Pennsylvania  Station. 
Just  to  appease  my  conscience,  I  stopped  in  at 
the  agreeable  Cadmus  bookshop  on  Thirty-third 
street  to  see  if  by  any  chance  they  might  have 
a  second-hand  copy  of  Kenko.  But  I  know 
they  wouldn't;  it  is  not  the  kind  of  book  at  all 
likely  to  be  found  second-hand.  I  tarried  here 
long  enough  to  smoke  one  cigarette  and  pay 
my  devoirs  to  the  noble  profession  of  second- 
hand bookselling.  I  even  thought,  a  little  wild- 
ly, of  buying  a  copy  of  "The  Monk"  by  M.  G. 
Lewis,  which  I  saw  there.     So  does  the  frenzy 

[105] 


Mince  Pie 

rage  when  once  you  unleash  it.  But  I  decided 
to  be  content  with  paying  my  devoirs  to  the 
proprietor,  a  friend  of  mine,  and  not  go  on  (as 
the  soldier  does  in  Hood's  lovely  pun)  to  de- 
vour my  pay.  I  hurried  off  to  the  oflSce  of  the 
Oxford   University    Press,   Kenko's   publishers. 

It  should  be  stated,  however,  that  owing  to 
some  confusion  of  doors  I  got  by  mistake  into 
the  reception  room  of  the  Brunswick-Balke- 
Collender  Billiard  Table  Company,  which  is  on 
the  same  corridor  as  the  salesroom  of  the  Ox- 
ford Press.  It  was  a  pleasant  reception  room, 
not  very  bookish  in  aspect,  but  in  my  agitation 
I  was  too  eager  to  feel  surprised  by  the  large 
billiard  table  in  the  offing.  I  somewhat  star- 
tled a  young  man  at  an  adding  machine  by  de- 
manding, in  a  husky  voice,  a  copy  of  "The 
Miscellanies  of  a  Japanese  Priest."  I  was 
rather  nervous  by  this  time,  lest  for  some  rea- 
son I  should  not  be  able  to  buy  a  copy  of  Kenko. 
I  feared  the  publishers  might  be  angry  with 
me  for  not  having  made  a  round  of  the  book- 
stores first.  The  young  man  saw  that  I  was 
chalking  the  wrong  cue,  and  forwarded  me. 

In  the  office  of  the  Oxford  Press  I  met  a 
very  genial  reception.  I  had  been,  as  I  say,  ap- 
prehensive lest  they  should  refuse  to  sell  me 
the  book;  or  perhaps  they  might  not  have  a 
copy.  I  wondered  what  credentials  I  could  of- 
[106] 


A  Japanese  Bachelor 

fep  to  override  their  scruples.  I  had  made  up 
my  mind  to  tell  them,  if  they  demurred,  that  I 
had  once  published  an  essay  to  prove  that  the 
best  book  for  reading  in  bed  is  the  General 
Catalogue  of  the  Oxford  University  Press. 
This  is  quite  true.  It  is  a  delightful  compila- 
tion of  several  thousand  pages,  on  India  paper. 
But  to  my  pleasant  surprise  the  Oxonians 
seemed  not  at  all  surprised  at  the  sudden  ap- 
pearance of  one  asking,  in  a  voice  a  little  shaken 
with  emotion,  for  a  copy  of  the  "Miscellanies.** 
Mr.  Campion  and  Mr.  Krause,  who  greeted  me, 
were  kindness  itself. 

"Oh,  yes,"  they  said,  "we  have  a  copy."  And 
in  a  minute  it  lay  before  me.  One  of  those  little 
green  and  gold  volumes  in  the  Oxford  Library 
of  Prose  and  Poetry.  "How  much?'*  I  said. 
"A  dollar  forty.**  I  paid  it  joyfully.  It  is  a 
good  price  for  a  book.  Once  I  wrote  a  book 
myself  that  sells  (when  it  does  sell)  at  that  fig- 
ure. When  I  was  at  Oxford  I  used  to  buy  the 
O.  L.  P.  P.  books  for  (I  think)  half  a  crown. 
In  1917  they  were  listed  at  a  dollar.  Now 
$1.40.  But  I  fear  Kenko*s  estate  doesn't  get 
the  advantage  of  increased  royalties. 

The  first  thing  to  do  was  to  find  a  place  to 
read  the  book.  My  club  was  fifteen  blocks  away. 
The  smoking  room  of  the  Pennsylvania  Station, 
where   I   have   done  much  reading,   was  three 

[107] 


Mince  Pie 

long  blocks.  But  I  must  dip  into  Kenko  im- 
mediately. Down  in  the  hallway  I  found  a 
shoe-shining  stand,  with  a  bowl  of  indirect  light 
above  it.  The  artist  was  busy  in  the  barber 
shop  near-by.  Admirable  opportunity.  I 
mounted  the  throne  and  fell  to.  The  first  thing 
I  saw  was  a  quaint  Japanese  woodcut  of  a 
buxom  maiden  washing  garments  in  a  rapidly 
purling  stream.  She  was  treading  out  a  pet- 
ticoat with  her  bare  feet,  presumably  on  a  flat 
stone.  In  a  black  storm-cloud  above  a  willow 
tree  a  bearded  supernatural  being,  with  hands 
spread  in  humorous  deprecation,  gazes  down 
half  pleased,  half  horrified.  And  the  caption  is, 
"Did  not  the  fairy  Kume  lose  his  supernatural 
powers  when  he  saw  the  white  le^s  of  a  girl 
washing  clothes?"  Yet  be  not  dismayed.  Ken- 
ko is  no  George  Moore. 

By  and  bye  the  shoeshiner  came  out  and 
found  me  reading.  He  was  apologetic.  "I 
didn*t  know  you  were  here,"  he  said.  "Sorry 
to  keep  you  waiting."  Fortunately  my  shoes 
needed  shining,  as  they  generally  do.  He 
shined  them,  and  I  still  sat  reading.  He  was 
puzzled,  and  tried  to  make  out  the  title  of  the 
book.     At  that  moment  I  was  reading: 

One  morning  after  a  beautiful  snowfall  I  sent  a 
letter  to  a  friend's  house  about  something  I  wished 

[108] 


A  Japanese  Bachelor 

to  say,  but  said  nothing  at  all  about  the  snow.  And 
in  his  reply  he  wrote:  "How  can  I  listen  to  a  man 
so  base  that  his  pen  in  writing  did  not  make  the  least 
reference  to  the  snow!  Your  honorable  way  of  ex- 
pressing yourself  I  exceedingly  regret."  How  amus- 
ing was  this  answer! 

The  shoeshiner  was  now  asking  me  whether 
anything  was  wrong  with  the  polish  he  had  put 
on  my  boots,  so  I  thought  it  best  to  leave. 

In  the  earlier  pages  of  Kenko's  book  there 
are  a  number  of  allusions  to  the  agreeableness 
of  intercourse  with  friends,  so  I  went  into  a 
nearby  restaurant  to  telephone  to  a  man  whom 
I  wished  to  know  better.  He  said  that  he  would 
be  happy  to  meet  me  at  ten  minutes  after 
twelve.  That  left  over  half  an  hour.  I  felt  an 
immediate  necessity  to  tell  some  one  about 
Kenko,  so  I  made  my  way  to  Mr.  Nichols's 
delightful  bookshop  (which  has  an  open  fire)  on 
Thirty-third  Street.  I  showed  the  book  to  Mr. 
Nichols,  and  we  had  a  pleasant  talk,  in  the 
course  of  which  she  showed  me  the  five  fac- 
simile volumes  of  Dickens's  Christmas  books, 
which  he  had  issued.  In  particular,  he  read 
aloud  to  me  the  magnificent  description  of  the 
boiling  kettle  in  the  first  "Chirp"  of  "The 
Cricket  on  the  Hearth,"  and  pointed  out  to  me 
how  Dickens  fell  into  rhyme  in  describing  the 

[109] 


Mince  Pie 

song  of  the  kettle.  This  passage  Mr.  Nichols 
read  to  me,  standing  in  front  of  his  fire,  in  a 
very  musical  and  sympathetic  tone  of  voice, 
which  pleased  me  exceedingly.  I  was  strongly 
tempted  to  buy  the  five  little  books,  and  wished 
I  had  known  of  them  before  Christmas.  With  a 
brutal  effort  at  last  I  pulled  out  my  watch,  and 
found  it  was  a  quarter  after  twelve. 

I  met  my  friend  at  his  office,  and  we  walked 
up  Fourth  Avenue  in  a  flush  of  sunshine.  From 
Twenty-fourth  to  Forty-second  Street  we  dis- 
cussed the  habits  of  English  poets  visiting  this 
country.  At  the  club  we  got  onto  Bolshevism, 
and  he  told  me  how  a  bookseller  on  Lexington 
Avenue,  whose  shop  is  frequented  by  very  out- 
spoken radicals,  had  told  him  that-one  of  these 
had  said,  "The  time  is  coming,  and  not  far 
away,  when  the  gutters  in  front  of  your  shop 
will  run  with  blood  as  they  did  in  Petrograd." 
I  thought  of  some  recent  bomb  outrages  in 
Philadelphia  and  did  not  laugh.  With  such  cur- 
rent problems  before  us,  I  felt  a  little  em- 
barrassed about  turning  the  talk  back  to  so 
many  centuries  to  Kenko,  but  finally  I  got  it 
there.  My  friend  ate  chicken  hash  and  tea;  I 
had  kidneys  and  bacon,  and  cocoa  with  whipped 
cream.  We  both  had  a  coffee  eclair.  We  parted 
with  mutual  regret,  and  I  went  back  to  the  Hall- 
bedroom  street,  intending  to  do  some  work. 
[110] 


A  Japanese  Bachelor 

Of  course  you  know  that  I  didn't  do  it.  I  lit 
the  gas  stove,  and  sat  down  to  read  Kenko. 
I  wished  I  were  a  recluse,  living  somewhere 
near  a  plum  tree  and  a  clear  running  water, 
leisurely  penning  maxims  for  posterity.  I  read 
about  his  frugality,  his  love  of  the  moon  and 
a  little  music,  his  somewhat  embittered  com- 
plaints against  the  folly  of  men  who  spend 
their  lives  in  rushing  about  swamped  in  petty 
affairs,  and  the  sad  story  of  the  old  priest 
who  was  attacked  by  a  goblin-cat  when  he 
came  home  late  at  night  from  a  pleasant  even- 
ing spent  in  capping  verses.  I  read  with  spe- 
cial pleasure  his  seven  Self-Congratulations,  in 
which  he  records  seven  occasions  when  he  felt 
that  he  had  really  done  himself  justice.  The 
first  of  these  was  when  he  watched  a  man 
riding  horseback  in  a  reckless  fashion;  he  pre- 
dicted that  the  man  would  come  a  cropper,  and 
he  did  so.  The  next  four  self-congratulations 
refer  to  times  when  his  knowledge  of  literary 
and  artistic  matters  enabled  him  to  place  an  un- 
familiar quotation  or  assign  a  painted  tablet  to 
the  right  artist.  One  tells  how  he  was  able  to 
find  a  man  in  a  crowd  when  everyone  else  had 
failed.  And  the  last  and  most  amusing  is  an 
anecdote  of  a  court  lady  who  tried  to  inveigle 
him  into  a  flirtation  with  her  maid  by  sending 
the  latter,  richly  dressed  and  perfumed,  to  sit 

[111] 


Mince  Pie 

very  close  to  him  when  he  was  at  the  temple. 
Kenko  congratulates  himself  on  having  been 
adamant.     He  was  no  Pepys. 

I  thought  of  trying  to  set  down  a  similar  list 
of  self-congratulations  for  myself.  Alas,  the 
only  two  I  could  think  of  were  having  remem- 
bered a  telephone  number,  the  memorandum  of 
which  I  had  lost;  and  having  persuaded  a  pub- 
lisher to  xssue  a  novel  which  was  a  great  suc- 
cess.    (Not  written  by  me,  let  me  add.) 

I  found  my  friend  Kenko  a  rather  disturbing 
companion.  His  condemnation  of  our  busy, 
racketing  life  is  so  damned  conclusive !  Having 
recently  added  to  my  family,  I  was  distressed 
by  his  section  "Against  Leaving  Any  Descend- 
ants." He  seems  to  be  devoid  of , the  sentiment 
of  ancestor  worship  and  sacredness  of  family 
continuity  which  we  have  been  taught  to  asso- 
ciate with  the  Oriental.  And  yet  there  is  al- 
ways a  current  of  suspicion  in  one's  mind  that 
he  is  not  really  revealing  his  inmost  heart. 
When  a  bachelor  in  his  late  fifties  tells  us  how 
glad  he  is  never  to  have  had  a  son,  we  begin 
to  taste  sour  grapes. 

I  went  out  about  six  o'clock,  and  was  thrilled 

by  a  shaving  of  shining  new  moon  in  the  cold 

blue  winter  sky — "the  sky  with  its  terribly  cold 

clear  moon,  which  none  care  to  watch,  is  sim- 

[112] 


A  Japanese  Bachelor 

ply  heart-breaking/'  says  Kenko.  As  I  walked 
up  Broadway  I  turned  back  for  another  look 
at  the  moon,  and  found  it  hidden  by  the  vast 
bulk  of  a  hotel.  Kenko  would  have  had  some 
caustic  remark  for  that.  I  went  into  the  Mil- 
waukee Lunch  for  supper.  They  had  just  baked 
some  of  their  delicious  fresh  bran  muffins,  still 
hot  from  the  oven.  I  had  two  of  them,  sliced 
and  buttered,  with  a  pot  of  tea.  Kenko  lay 
on  the  table,  and  the  red-headed  philosopher 
who  runs  the  lunchroom  spotted  him.  I  have 
always  noticed  that  "plain  men"  are  vastly 
curious  about  books.  They  seem  to  suspect  that 
there  is  some  occult  power  in  them,  some  mys- 
tery that  they  would  like  to  grasp.  My  friend, 
who  has  the  bearing  of  a  prizefighter,  but  the 
heart  of  an  amiable  child,  came  over  and  picked 
up  the  book.  He  sat  down  at  the  table  with  me 
and  looked  at  it.  I  was  a  little  doubtful  how 
to  explain  matters,  for  I  felt  that  it  was  the 
kind  of  book  he  would  not  be  likely  to  care 
for.  He  began  spelling  it  out  loud,  rather 
laboriously — 


Section  1.  Weill  Being  born  into  this  world 
there  are,  I  suppose,  many  aims  which  we  may  strive 
to  attain. 


To  my  surprise  he  showed  the  greatest  en- 
thusiasm.    So  much  so  that  I  ordered  another 

[113] 


Mince  Pie 

pair  of  bran  muffins,  which  I  did  not  really 
want,  so  that  he  might  have  more  time  for  read- 
ing Kenko. 

"Who  was  this  fellow?'*  he  asked. 

"He  was  a  Jap/*  I  said,  "lived  a  long  time 
ago.  He  was  mighty  thick  with  the  Emperor, 
and  after  the  Emperor  died  he  went  to  live  by 
himself  in  the  country,  and  became  a  priest,  and 
wrote  down  his  thoughts." 

"I  see,"  said  my  friend.  "Just  put  down 
whatever  came  into  his  head,  eh?" 

"That's  it.  All  his  ideas  about  the  queer 
things  a  fellow  runs  into  in  life,  you  know,  little 
bits  of  philosophy." 

I  was  a  little  afraid  of  using  that  word 
"philosophy,"  but  I  couldn't  think  of  anything 
else  to  say.  It  struck  my  friend  very  pleas- 
antly. 

"That's  it,"  he  said,  "philosophy.  Just  as 
you  say,  now,  he  went  off  by  himself  and  put 
things  down  the  way  they  come  to  him.  Phi- 
losophy. Sure.  Say,  that's  a  good  kind  of  book. 
I  like  that  kind  of  thing.  I  have  a  lot  of  books 
at  home,  you  know.  I  get  home  about  nine 
o'clock,  and  I  most  always  read  a  bit  before  I 
go  to  bed." 

How  I  yearned  to  know  what  books  they  were, 
but  it  seemed  rude  to  question  him. 

He  dipped  into  Kenko  again,  and  I  wondered 
[114] 


A  Japanese  Bachelor 

whether  courtesy  demanded  that  I  should  order 
another  pot  of  tea. 

"Say,  would  you  like  to  do  me  a  favor?" 

"Sure  thing/'  I  said. 

"When  you  get  through  with  that  book,  pass 
it  over,  will  you?  That's  the  kind  of  thing 
I've  been  wanting.  Just  some  little  thoughts, 
you  know,  something  short.  I've  got  a  lot  of 
books  at  home." 

His  big  florid  face  gleamed  with  friendly 
earnestness. 

"Sure  thing,"  I  said.  "Just  as  soon  as  I've 
finished  it  you  shall  have  it."  I  wanted  to  ask 
whether  he  would  reciprocate  by  lending  me  one 
of  his  own  books,  which  would  give  me  some 
clue  to  his  tastes;  but  again  I  felt  obscurely 
that  he  would  not  understand  my  curiosity. 

As  I  went  out  he  called  to  me  again  from 
where  he  stood  by  the  shining  coffee  boiler. 
"Don't  forget,  will  you?"  he  said.  "When 
you're  through,  just  pass  it  over." 

I  promised  faithfully,  and  tomorrow  evening 
I  shall  take  the  book  in  to  him.  I  honestly  hope 
he'll  enjoy  it.  I  walked  up  the  bright  wintry 
street,  and  wondered  what  Kenko  would  have 
said  to  the  endless  flow  of  taxicabs,  the  ele- 
vators and  subways,  the  telephones,  and  tele- 
graph offices,  the  newsstands  and  especially  the 
plate-glass  windows  of  florists.    He  would  have 

[115] 


Mince  Pie 

had  some  urbane,  cynical  and  delightfully  dis- 
illusioning remarks  to  offer.  And,  as  Mr. 
Weaver  so  shrewdly  says,  how  he  would  enjoy 
"The  Way  of  All  Flesh!" 

I  came  back  to  Hallbedroom  street,  and  set 
down  these  few  meditations.  There  is  much 
more  I  would  like  to  say,  but  the  partitions  in 
hall  bedrooms  are  thin,  and  the  lady  in  the  next 
room  thumps  on  the  wall  if  I  keep  the  type- 
writer going  after  ten  o'clock. 


[116] 


TWO  DAYS  WE  CELEBRATE 


, > 


IF  we  were  asked  (we  have  not  been  asked) 
to  name  a  day  the  world  ought  to  celebrate 
and  does  not,  we  would  name  the  l6th  of  May. 
For  on  that  day,  in  the  year  1763,  James  Bos- 
well  first  met  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson. 

This  great  event,  which  enriched  the  world 
with  one  of  the  most  vivid  panoramas  of  hu- 
man nature  known  to  man,  happened  in  Tom 
Davies's  bookshop  in  Covent  Garden.  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Davies  were  friends  of  the  Doctor,  who 
frequently  visited  their  shop.  Of  them  Bos- 
well  remarks  quaintly  that  though  they  had 
been  on  the  stage  for  many  years,  they  "main- 

[117] 


Mince  Pie 

tained  an  uniform  decency  of  character."  The 
shop  seems  to  have  been  a  charming  place:  one 
went  there  not  merely  to  buy  books,  but  also  to 
have  a  cup  of  tea  in  the  back  parlor.  It  is  sad 
to  think  that  though  we  have  been  hanging 
round  bookshops  for  a  number  of  years,  we  have 
never  yet  met  a  bookseller  who  invited  us  into 
the  private  office  for  a  quiet  cup.  Wait  a  mo- 
ment, though,  we  are  forgetting  Dr.  Rosenbach, 
the  famous  bookseller  of  Philadelphia.  But  his 
collations,  held  in  amazed  memory  by  many 
editioneers,  rarely  descend  to  anything  so  hum- 
ble as  tea.  One  recalls  a  confused  glamor  of 
ortolans,  trussed  guinea-hens,  strawberries  re- 
clining in  a  bowl  carved  out  of  solid  ice,  and 
what  used  to  be  known  as  vintages.  It  is  a  pity 
that  Dr.  Johnson  died  too  soon,  to  take  lunch 
with  Dr.  Rosenbach. 

"At  last,  on  Monday,  the  l6th  of  May,"  says 
Boswell,  "when  I  was  sitting  in  Mr.  Davies's 
back  parlor,  after  having  drunk  tea  with  him 
and  Mrs.  Davies,  Johnson  unexpectedly  came 
into  the  shop ;  and  Mr.  Davies,  having  perceiv- 
ed him  through  the  glass  door,  announced  his 
awful  approach  to  me.  Mr.  Davies  mentioned 
my  name,  and  respectfully  introduced  me  to 
him.  I  was  much  agitated."  The  volatile  Bos- 
well may  be  forgiven  his  agitation.  We  also 
would  have  trembled  not  a  little.  Boswell  was 
[118] 


Two  Days  We  Celebrate 

only  twenty-two,  and  probably  felt  that  his 
whole  life  and  career  hung  upon  the  great 
man*s  mood.  But  embarrassment  is  a  comely 
emotion  for  a  young  man  in  the  face  of  great- 
ness ;  and  the  Doctor  was  speedily  put  in  a  good 
humor  by  an  opportunity  to  utter  his  favorite 
pleasantry  at  the  expense  of  the  Scotch.  "I 
do,  indeed,  come  from  Scotland,"  cried  Boswell, 
after  Davies  had  let  the  cat  out  of  the  bag; 
"but  I  cannot  help  it."  "That,  sir,"  said  Doc- 
tor Johnson,  "is  what  a  great  many  of  your 
countrymen  cannot  help." 

The  great  book  that  dated  from  that  meeting 
in  Davies's  back  parlor  has  become  one  of  the 
most  intimately  cherished  possessions  of  the 
race.  One  finds  its  admirers  and  students  scat- 
tered over  the  globe.  No  man  who  loves  human 
nature  in  all  its  quirks  and  pangs,  seasoned  with 
bluff  honesty  and  the  genuineness  of  a  cliff  or  a 
tree,  can  afford  to  step  into  a  hearse  until  he 
has  made  it  his  own.  And  it  is  a  noteworthy 
illustration  of  the  biblical  saying  that  whosoever 
will  rule,  let  him  be  a  servant.  Boswell  made 
himself  the  servant  of  Johnson,  and  became  one 
of  the  masters  of  English  literature. 

It  used  to  annoy  us  to  hear  Karl  Rosner  re- 
ferred to  as  "the  Kaiser's  Boswell."  For  to 
hoswellize  (which  is  a  verb  that  has  gone  into 

[119] 


Mince  Pie 

our  dictionaries)  means  not  merely  to  transcribe 
faithfully  the  acts  and  moods  and  import  of  a 
man's  life;  it  implies  also  that  the  man  so  de- 
lineated be  a  good  man  and  a  great.  Horace 
Traubel  was  perhaps  a  Boswell;  but  Rosner, 
never. 

It  is  pleasant  to  know  that  Boswell  was  not 
merely  a  kind  of  animated  note-book.  He  was 
a  droll,  vain,  erring,  bibulous,  warm-hearted 
creature,  a  good  deal  of  a  Pepys,  in  fact,  with 
all  the  Pepysian  vices  and  virtues.  Mr.  A.  Ed- 
ward Newton's  "Amenities  of  Book  Collecting" 
makes  Boswell  very  human  to  us.  How  jolly  it 
is  to  learn  that  Jamie  (like  many  lesser  fry 
since)  wrote  press  notices  about  himself.  Here 
is  one  of  his  own  blurbs,  which  we  quote  from 
Mr.  Newton's  book: 

Boswell,  the  author,  is  a  most  excellent  man:  he  is 
of  an  ancient  family  in  the  west  of  Scotland,  upon 
which  he  values  himself  not  a  little.  At  his  nativity 
there  appeared  omens  of  his  future  greatness.  His 
parts  are  bright,  and  his  education  has  been  good. 
He  has  traveled  in  post  chaises  miles  without  num- 
ber. He  is  fond  of  seeing  much  of  the  world.  He 
eats  of  every  good  dish,  especially  apple  pie.  He 
drinks  Old  Hock.  He  has  a  very  fine  temper.  He 
is  somewhat  of  a  humorist  and  a  little  tinctured  with 
pride.  He  has  a  good  manly  countenance,  and  he 
owns  himself  to  be  amorous.  He  has  infinite  viva- 
city, yet  is  observed  at  times  to  have  a  melancholy 

[120] 


Two  Days  We  Celebrate 

cast.  He  is  rather  fat  than  lean,  ratlTer  short  than 
tall,  rather  young  than  old.  His  shoes  are  neatly" 
made,  and  he  never  wears  spectacles. 


This  brings  the  excellent  Boswell  very  close 
to  us  indeed:  he  might  almost  be  a  member  of 
the  Authors*  League.  "Especially  apple  pie, 
bless  his  heart  V* 

When  we  said  that  Boswell  was  a  kind  of 
Pepys^  we  fell  by  chance  into  a  happy  compari- 
son. Not  only  by  his  volatile  errors  was  he  of 
the  tribe  of  Samuel,  but  in  his  outstanding 
character  by  which  he  becomes  of  importance  to 
posterity — that  of  one  of  the  great  diarists. 
Now  there  is  no  human  failing  upon  which  we 
look  with  more  affectionate  lenience  than  that 
of  keeping  a  diary.  All  of  us,  in  our  pilgrim- 
age through  the  difficult  thickets  of  this  world, 
have  moods  and  moments  when  we  have  to  fall 
back  on  ourselves  for  the  only  complete  un- 
derstanding and  absolution  we  will  ever  find. 
In  such  times,  how  pleasant  it  is  to  record  our 
emotions  and  misgivings  in  the  sure  and  secret 
pages  of  some  privy  notebook;  and  how  enter- 
taining to  read  them  again  in  later  years !  Dr. 
Johnson  himself  advised  Bozzy  to  keep  a  jour- 
nal, though  he  little  suspected  to  what  use  it 
would  be  put.  The  cynical  will  say  that  he  did 
so  in  order  that  Bozzy  would  have  less  time  to 

[121] 


Mince  Pie 

pester  him,  but  we  believe  his  advice  was  sin- 
cere. It  must  have  been,  for  the  Doctor  kept 
one  himself,  of  which  more  in  a  moment. 

"He  recommended  to  me,"  Boswell  says,  "to 
keep  a  journal  of  my  life,  full  and  unreserved. 
He  said  it  would  be  a  very  good  exercise  and 
would  yield  me  great  satisfaction  when  the  par- 
ticulars were  faded  from  my  remembrance.  He 
counselled  me  to  keep  it  private,  and  said  I 
might  surely  have  a  friend  who  would  burn  it  in 
case  of  my  death." 

Happily  it  was  not  burned.  The  Great  Doc- 
tor never  seemed  so  near  to  me  as  the  other 
day  when  I  saw  a  little  notebook,  bound  in  soft 
brown  leather  and  interleaved  with  blotting  pa- 
per, in  which  Bozzy's  busy  pen  had  jotted  down 
memoranda  of  his  talks  with  his  .friend,  while 
they  were  still  echoing  in  his  mind.  From  this 
notebook  (which  must  have  been  one  of  many) 
the  paragraphs  were  transferred  practically  un- 
altered into  the  Life.  This  superb  treasure, 
now  owned  by  Mr.  Adam  of  Buffalo,  almost 
makes  one  hear  the  Doctor's  voice;  and  one 
imagines  Boswell  sitting  up  at  night  with  his 
candle,  methodically  recording  the  remarks  of 
the  day.  The  first  entry  was  dated  September 
22,  1777,  so  Bozzy  must  have  carried  it  in  his 
pocket  when  Dr.  Johnson  and  he  were  visiting 
Dr.  Taylor  in  Ashbourne.  It  was  during  this 
[122] 


Two  Days  We  Celebrate 

junket  that  Dr.  Johnson  tried  to  pole  the  large 
dead  cat  over  Dr.  Taylor's  dam,  an  incident 
that  Boswell  recorded  as  part  of  his  "Flemish 
picture  of  my  friend."  It  was  then  also  that 
Mrs.  Killingley,  mistress  of  Ashbourne's  lead- 
ing inn.  The  Green  Man,  begged  Boswell  '*to 
name  the  house  to  his  extensive  acquaintance." 
Certainly  Bozzy's  acquaintance  was  to  be  far 
more  extensive  than  good  Mrs.  Killingley  ever 
dreamed.  It  was  he  who  "named  the  house'* 
to  me,  and  for  this  reason  The  Green  Man 
profited  in  fourpence  worth  of  cider,  134  years 
later. 

There  is  another  day  we  have  vowed  to  com- 
memorate, by  drinking  great  flaggonage  of  tea, 
and  that  is  the  18th  of  September,  Dr.  John- 
son's birthday.  The  Great  Cham  needs  no 
champion;  his  speech  and  person  have  become 
part  of  our  common  heritage.  Yet  the  extraor- 
dinary scenario  in  which  Boswell  filmed  him  for 
us  has  attained  that  curious  estate  of  great  lit- 
erature the  characteristic  of  which  is  that  every 
man  imagines  he  has  read  it,  though  he  may 
never  have  opened  its  pages.  It  is  like  the  his- 
toric landmark  of  one's  home  town,  which  for- 
eigners from  overseas  come  to  study,  but  which 
the  denizen  has  hardly  entered.  It  is  like  Niag- 
ara Falls :  we  have  a  very  fair  mental  picture  of 
the    spectacle    and    little    zeal    to    visit    the 

[123] 


Mince  Pie 

uproar  itself.  And  so^  though  we  all  use  Doctor 
Johnson's  sharply  stamped  coinages^  we  gener- 
ally are  too  lax  about  visiting  the  mint. 

But  we  will  never  cease  to  pray  that  every 
honest  man  should  study  Boswell.  There  are 
many  who  have  topped  the  rise  of  human  felic- 
ity in  that  book:  when  reading  it  they  feel  the 
tide  of  intellect  brim  the  mind  with  a  unique 
fullness  of  satisfaction.  It  is  not  a  mere  com- 
mentary on  life:  it  is  life — it  fills  and  floods 
every  channel  of  the  brain.  It  is  a  book  that 
men  make  a  hobby  of,  as  golf  or  billiards.  To 
know  it  is  a  liberal  education.  I  could  have 
understood  Germany  yearning  to  invade  Eng- 
land in  order  to  annex  Boswell's  Johnson. 
There  would  have  been  some  sense  in  that. 

What  is  the  average  man's  conception  of 
Doctor  Johnson?  We  think  of  a  huge  ungainly 
creature,  slovenly  of  dress,  addicted  to  tea,  the 
author  of  a  dictionary  and  the  center  of  a  tav- 
ern coterie.  We  think  of  him  prefacing  bluff 
and  vehement  remarks  with  "Sir,"  and  having 
a  knack  for  demolishing  opponents  in  boister- 
ous argument.  All  of  which  is  passing  true, 
just  as  is  our  picture  of  the  Niagara  we  have 
never  seen;  but  how  it  misses  the  inner  tender- 
ness and  tormented  virtue  of  the  man ! 

So  it  is  refreshing  sometimes  to  turn  away 
from  Boswell  to  those  passages  where  the  good 
[124] 


Two  Days  We  Celebrate 

old  Doctor  has  revealed  himself  with  his  own 
hand.  The  letter  to  Chesterfield  is  too  well 
known  for  comment.  But  no  less  noble^  and 
not  nearly  so  well  known,  is  the  preface  to  the 
Dictionary.  How  moving  it  is  in  its  sturdy 
courage,  its  strong  grasp  of  the  tools  of  ex- 
pression. In  every  line  one  feels  the  weight 
and  push  of  a  mind  that  had  behind  it  the  full 
reservoir  of  language,  particularly  the  Latin, 
There  is  the  same  sense  of  urgent  pressure  that 
one  feels  in  watching  a  strong  stream  backed 
up  behind  a  dam: 

I  look  with  pleasure  on  my  book,  however  defec- 
tive, and  deliver  it  to  the  world  with  the  spirit  of  a 
man  that  has  endeavored  well.  That  it  will  immedi- 
ately become  popular  I  have  not  promised  to  myself: 
a  few  wild  blunders,  and  risible  absurdities,  from 
which  no  work  of  such  multiplicity  was  ever  free, 
may  for  a  time  furnish  folly  with  laughter,  and 
harden  ignorance  in  contempt,  but  useful  diligence 
will  at  last  prevail,  and  there  never  can  be  want- 
ing some  who  distinguish  desert;  who  will  consider 
that  no  dictionary  of  a  living  tongue  ever  can  be 
perfect,  since  while  it  is  hastening  to  publication, 
some  words  are  budding,  and  some  falling  away; 
that  a  whole  life  cannot  be  spent  upon  syntax  and 
etymology,  and  that  even  a  whole  life  would  not  be 
sufficient;  that  he,  whose  design  includes  whatever 
language  can  express,  must  often  speak  of  what  he 
does  not  understand;  that  a  writer  will  sometimes  be 
hurried  by  eagerness  to  the  end,  and  sometimes  faint 

[125] 


Mince  Pie 

with  weariness  under  a  task,  which  Scaliger  compares 
to  the  labors  of  the  anvil  and  the  mine;  that  what 
is  obvious  is  not  always  known,  and  what  is  known 
is  not  always  present;  that  sudden  fits  of  inadver- 
tency will  surprise  vigilance,  slight  avocations  will 
seduce  attention,  and  casual  eclipses  of  the  mind 
will  darken  learning;  and  that  the  writer  shall  often 
in  vain  trace  his  memory  at  the  moment  of  need, 
for  that  which  yesterday  he  knew  with  intuitive 
readiness,  and  which  will  come  uncalled  into  his 
thoughts  to-morrow. 

I  know  no  better  way  of  celebrating  Doctor 
Johnson's  birthday  than  by  quoting  a  few  pas- 
sages from  his  "Prayers  and  Meditations/* 
jotted  down  during  his  life  in  small  note-books 
and  given  shortly  before  his  death  to  a  friend. 
No  one  understands  the  dear  old  doctor  unless 
he  remembers  that  his  spirit  was*  greatly  per- 
plexed and  harassed  by  sad  and  disordered 
broodings.  The  bodily  twitchings  and  odd  ges- 
tures which  attracted  so  much  attention  as  he 
rolled  about  the  streets  were  symptoms  of  pain- 
ful twitchings  and  gestures  within.  A  great 
part  of  his  intense  delight  in  convivial  gather- 
ings, in  conversation  and  the  dinner  table,  was 
due  to  his  eagerness  to  be  taken  out  of  himself. 
One  fears  that  his  solitary  hours  were  very  of- 
ten tragic. 

There  were  certain  dates  which  Doctor  John- 
son almost  always  commemorated  in  his  private 
[126] 


Two  Days  We  Celebrate 

notebook — his  birthday,  the  date  of  his  wife's 
death,  the  Easter  season  and  New  Year's.  In 
these  pathetic  little  entries  one  sees  the  spirit 
that  was  dogmatic  and  proud  among  men  abas- 
ing itself  in  humility  and  pouring  out  the  gen- 
erous tenderness  of  an  affectionate  nature.  In 
these  moments  of  contrition  small  peccadilloes 
took  on  tragic  importance  in  his  mind.  Rising 
late  in  the  morning  and  the  untidy  state  of  his 
papers  seemed  unforgivable  sins.  There  is 
hardly  any  more  moving  picture  in  the  history 
of  mankind  than  that  of  the  rugged  old  doctor 
pouring  out  his  innocent  petitions  for  greater 
strength  in  ordering  his  life  and  bewailing  his 
faults  of  sluggishness,  indulgence  at  table  and 
disorderly  thoughts.  Let  us  begin  with  his  en- 
try on  September  18,  1760,  his  fifty-second 
birthday : 

RESOLVED,  D.  j. 

To  combat  notions  of  obligation. 

To  apply  to  study. 

To  reclaim  imaginations. 

To    consult    the    resolves    on    Tetty's    [his 
wife's]  coffin. 

To  rise  early. 

To  study  religion. 

To  go  to  church. 

To  drink  less  strong  liquors. 

To  keep  a  journal. 

[127] 


Mince  Pie 

To  oppose  laziness  by  doing  what  is  to  be 
done  to-morrow. 

Rise  as  early  as  I  can. 

Send  for  books  for  history  of  war. 

Put  books  in  order. 

Scheme  of  life. 

The  very  human  feature  of  these  little  notes 
is  that  the  same  good  resolutions  appear  year 
after  year.  Thus,  four  years  after  the  above, 
we  find  him  writing: 

Sept.  18,  1764. 

This  is  my  56th  birthday,  the  day  on  which  I 
have  concluded  55  years. 

I  have  outlived  many  friends.  I  have  felt 
many  sorrows.  I  have  made  few  improvements. 
Since  my  resolution  formed  last  Easter,  I  have 
made  no  advancement  in  knowledge  or  in  good- 
ness; nor  do  I  recollect  that  I  have  endeavored 
it.    I  am  dejected,  but  not  hopeless. 

I  resolve, 

To  study  the  Scriptures;  I  hope,  in  the  orig- 
inal languages.  Six  hundred  and  forty  verses 
every  Sunday  will  nearly  comprise  the  Scrip- 
tures in  a  year. 

To  read  good  books ;  to  study  theology. 

To  treasure  in  my  mind  passages  for  recol- 
lection. 

[128] 


Two  Days  We  Celebrate 

To  rise  early;  not  later  than  six,  if  I  can;  I 
hope  sooner,  but  as  soon  as  I  can. 

To  keep  a  journal,  both  of  employment  and 
of  expenses.     To  keep  accounts. 

To  take  care  of  my  health  by  such  means  as 
I  have  designed. 

To  set  down  at  night  some  plan  for  the  mor- 
row. 

To-morrow  I  purpose  to  regulate  my  room. 

At  Easter,  1765,  he  confesses  sadly  that  he 
often  lies  abed  until  two  in  the  afternoon; 
which,  after  all,  was  not  so  deplorable,  for  he 
usually  went  to  bed  very  late.  Boswell  has 
spoken  of  "the  unseasonable  hour  at  which  he 
had  habituated  himself  to  expect  the  oblivion 
of  repose."  On  New  Year's  Day,  1767,  he 
prays:  "Enable  me,  O  Lord,  to  use  all  enjoy- 
ments with  due  temperance,  preserve  me  from 
THiseasonable  and  immoderate  sleep."  Two 
years  later  than  this  he  writes: 

"I  am  not  yet  in  a  state  to  form  many  resolu- 
tions; I  purpose  and  hope  to  rise  early  in  the 
morning  at  eight,  and  by  degrees  at  six;  eight 
being  the  latest  hour  to  which  bedtime  can  be 
properly  extended;  and  six  the  earliest  that 
the  present  system  of  life  requires." 

One  of  the  most  pathetic  of  his  entries  is  the 
following,  on  September  18,  1768: 

[129] 


Mince  Pie 

"This  day  it  came  into  my  mind  to  write  the 
history  of  my  melancholy.  On  this  I  purpose 
to  deliberate;  I  know  not  whether  it  may  not 
too  much  disturb  me." 

From  time  to  time  there  have  been  stupid  or 
malicious  people  who  have  said  that  Johnson's 
marriage  with  a  homely  woman  twenty  years 
older  than  himself  was  not  a  love  match.  For 
instance^  Mr.  E.  W.  Howe,  of  Atchison,  Kan., 
in  most  respects  an  amiable  and  well-conducted 
philosopher,  uttered  in  Howe's  Monthly  (May, 
191 8)  the  following  words,  which  (I  hope)  he 
will  forever  regret: 

"I  have  heard  that  when  a  young  man  he 
(Johnson)  married  an  ugly  and  vulgar  old 
woman  for  her  money,  and  that  his  taste  was 
so  bad  that  he  worshiped  her.**' 

Against  this  let  us  set  what  Johnson  wrote  in 
his  notebook  on  March  28,  1770: 

This  is  the  day  on  which,  in  1752,  I  was  de- 
prived of  poor  dear  Tetty.  When  I  recollect 
the  time  in  which  we  lived  together,  my  grief 
of  her  departure  is  not  abated;  and  I  have  less 
pleasure  in  any  good  that  befalls  me,  because 
she  does  not  partake  it.  On  many  occasions,  I 
think  what  she  would  have  said  or  done.  When 
tffebw  the  sea  at  Brighthelmstone,  I  wished  for 
iier  to  have  seen  it  with  me.  But  with  respect 
HkSO] 


Two  Days  We  Celebrate 

to  her,  no  rational  wish  is  now  left  but  that 
we  may  meet  at  last  where  the  mercy  of  God 
shall  make  us  happy,  and  perhaps  make  us  in- 
strumental to  the  happiness  of  each  other.  It 
is  now  18  years. 

Let  us  end  the  memorandum  with  a  less  sol- 
emn note.  On  Good  Friday,  1779,  he  and  Bos- 
well  went  to  church  together.  When  they  re- 
turned the  good  old  doctor  sat  down  to  read  the 
Bible,  and  he  says,  "I  gave  Boswell  Les  Pensees 
de  Pascal,  that  he  might  not  interrupt  me."  Of 
this  very  copy  Boswell  says:  "I  preserve  the 
book  with  reverence.**  I  wonder  who  has  it, 
now.^ 

So  let  us  wish  Doctor  Johnson  many  happy 
returns  of  the  day,  sure  that  as  long  as  paper 
and  ink  and  eyesight  preserve  their  virtue  he 
will  bide  among  us,  real  and  living  and  endless- 
ly loved. 


[131] 


THE  URCHIN  AT  THE  ZOO 

I  DON'T  know  just  what  urchins  think  about; 
neither  do  they,  perhaps;  but  presumably 
by  the  time  they're  twenty-eight  months  old 
they  must  have  formed  some  ideas  as  to  what 
is  possible  and  what  isn't.  And  therefore  it 
seemed  to  the  Urchin's  curators  sound  and  ad- 
visable to  take  him  out  to  the  Zoo  one  Sunday 
afternoon  just  to  suggest  to  his  delightful  mind 
that  nothing  is  impossible  in  this  curious  world. 

Of  course,  the  amusing  feature  of  such  ex- 
peditions is  that  it  is  always  the  adult  who  is 
astounded,  while  the  child  takes  things  blandly 
for  granted.  You  or  I  can  watch  a  tiger  for 
hours  and  not  make  head  or  tail  of  it — in  a 
spiritual  sense,  that  is — whereas  an  urchin  sim- 
ply smiles  with  rapture,  isn't  the  least  amazed, 
and  wants  to  stroke  the  "nice  pussy." 

It  was  a  soft  spring  afternoon,  the  garden 
was  thronged  with  visitors  and  all  the  indoor 
animals  seemed  to  be  wondering  how  soon  they 
would  be  let  out  into  their  open-air  inclosures. 
We  filed  through  the  wicket  gate  and  the  Urchin 
[132] 


The  Urchin  at  the  Zoo 

disdained  the  little  green  go-carts  ranked  for 
hire.  He  preferred  to  navigate  the  Zoo  on  his 
own  white-gaitered  legs.  You  might  as  well 
have  expected  Adam  on  his  first  tour  of  Eden  to 
ride  in  a  palanquin. 

The  Urchin  entered  the  Zoo  much  in  the 
frame  of  mind  that  must  have  been  Adam's  on 
that  original  tour  of  inspection.  He  had  been 
told  he  was  going  to  the  Zoo,  but  that  meant 
nothing  to  him.  He  saw  by  the  aspect  of  his 
curators  that  he  was  to  have  a  good  time,  and 
loyally  he  was  prepared  to  exult  over  what- 
ever might  come  his  way.  The  first  thing  he 
saw  was  a  large  boulder — it  is  set  up  as  a  me- 
morial to  a  former  curator  of  the  garden. 
"Ah,"  thought  the  Urchin,  "this  is  what  I  have 
been  brought  here  to  admire."  With  a  shout  of 
glee  he  ran  to  it.  "See  stone,"  he  cried.  He 
is  an  enthusiast  concerning  stones.  He  has  a 
small  cardboard  box  of  pebbles,  gathered  from 
the  walks  of  a  city  square,  which  is  very  pre- 
cious to  him.  And  this  magnificent  big  pebble, 
he  evidently  thought,  was  the  marvelous  thing 
he  had  come  to  examine.  His  custodians,  far 
more  anxious  than  he  to  feast  their  eyes  upon 
lions  and  tigers,  had  hard  work  to  lure  him 
away.  He  crouched  by  the  boulder,  appraising 
its  hugeness,  and  left  it  with  the  gratified  air 

[133] 


Mince  Pie 

of  one  who  has  extracted  the  heart  out  of  a  sur- 
prising and  significant  experience. 

The  next  adventure  was  a  robin,  hopping  on 
the  lawn.  Every  child  is  familiar  with  robins, 
which  play  a  leading  part  in  so  much  Mother 
Goose  mythology,  so  the  Urchin  felt  himself 
greeting  an  old  friend.  "See  Robin  Red- 
breast!'* he  exclaimed,  and  tried  to  climb  the 
low  wire  fence  that  bordered  the  path.  The 
robin  hopped  discreetly  underneath  a  bush,  un- 
certain of  our  motives. 

Now,  as  I  have  no  motive  but  to  attempt 
to  record  the  truth,  it  is  my  duty  to  set  down 
quite  frankly  that  I  believe  the  Urchin  showed 
more  enthusiasm  over  the  stone  and  the  robin 
than  over  any  of  the  amazements  that  suc- 
ceeded them.  I  suppose  the  reason  for  that 
is  plain.  These  two  objects  had  some  under- 
standable relation  with  his  daily  life.  His 
small  mind — ^we  call  a  child's  mind  "small"  sim- 
ply by  habit;  perhaps  it  is  larger  than  ours,  for 
it  can  take  in  almost  anything  without  effort — 
possessed  well-known  classifications  into  which 
the  big  stone  and  the  robin  fitted  comfortably 
and  naturally.  But  what  can  a  child  say  to  an 
ostrich  or  an  elephant?  It  simply  smiles  and 
passes  on.  Thereby  showing  its  superiority  to 
some  of  our  most  eminent  thinkers.  They,  con- 
fronted by  something  the  like  of  which  they 
[134] 


The  Urchin  at  the  Zoo 

have  never  seen  before — shall  we  say  a  League 
of  Nations  or  Bolshevism? — burst  into  shrill 
screams  of  panic  abuse  and  flee  the  precinct! 
How  much  wiser  the  level-headed  Urchin !  Con- 
fronting the  elephant,  certainly  an  appalling 
sight  to  so  small  a  mortal,  he  looked  at  the  cura- 
tor, who  was  carrying  him  on  one  shoulder, 
and  said  with  an  air  of  one  seeking  gently  to 
reassure  himself,  **Elphunt  won't  come  after 
Junior.'*  Which  is  something  of  the  mood  to 
which  the  Senate  is  moving. 

It  was  delightful  to  see  the  Urchin  endeavor 
to  bring  some  sense  of  order  into  this  amaz- 
ing place  by  his  classification  of  the  strange 
sights  that  surrounded  him.  He  would  not 
confess  himself  staggered  by  anything.  At  his 
first  glimpse  of  the  emu  he  cried  ecstatic, 
"Look,  there's  a  ,*'  and  paused,  not  know- 
ing what  on  earth  to  call  it.  Then  rapidly  to 
cover  up  his  ignorance  he  pointed  confidently 
to  a  somewhat  similar  fowl  and  said  sagely, 
"And  there's  another !"  The  curious  moth-eaten 
and  shabby  appearance  that  captive  camels  al- 
ways exhibit  was  accurately  recorded  in  his 
addressing  one  of  them  as  "poor  old  horsie." 
And  after  watching  the  llamas  in  silence,  when 
he  saw  them  nibble  at  some  grass  he  was  satis- 
fied. "Moo-cow,"  he  stated  positively,  and  turn- 
ed away.     The  bears  did  not  seem  to  interest 

[135] 


Mince  Pie 

him  until  he  was  reminded  of  Goldylocks.  Then 
he  remembered  the  pictures  of  the  bears  in 
that  story  and  began  to  take  stock  of  them. 

The  Zoo  is  a  pleasant  place  to  wander  on  a 
Sunday  afternoon.  The  willow  trees,  down  by 
the  brook  where  the  otters  were  plunging,  were 
a  cloud  of  delicate  green.  Shrubs  everywhere 
were  bursting  into  bud.  The  Tasmanian  devils, 
those  odd  little  swine  that  look  like  small  pigs 
in  a  high  fever,  were  lying  sprawled  out,  belly 
to  the  sun-warmed  earth,  in  the  same  whimsical 
posture  that  dogs  adopt  when  trying  to  express 
how  jolly  they  feel.  The  Urchin's  curators 
were  at  a  loss  to  know  what  the  Tasmanian 
devils  were  and  at  first  were  led  astray  by  a 
sign  on  a  tree  in  the  devils'  inclosure.  "Look, 
they're  Norway  maples,"  cried  one  curator.  In 
the  same  way  we  thought  at  first  that  a  llama 
was  a  Chinese  ginkgo.  These  errors  lead  to  a 
decent  humility. 

There  is  something  about  a  Zoo  that  always 
makes  one  hungry,  so  we  sat  on  a  bench  in  the 
sun,  watched  the  stately  swans  ruffling  like 
square-rigged  ships  on  the  sparkling  pond,  and 
ate  biscuits,  while  the  Urchin  was  given  a  man- 
date over  some  very  small  morsels.  He  was 
much  entertained  by  the  monkeys  in  the  open- 
air  cages.  In  the  upper  story  of  one  cage  a 
lady  baboon  was  embracing  an  urchin  of  her 
[136] 


The  Urchin  at  the  Zoo 

own,  while  underneath  her  husband  was  turn- 
ing over  a  pile  of  straw  in  a  persistent  search 
for  small  deer.  It  was  a  sad  day  for  the  mon- 
keys at  the  Zoo  when  the  rule  was  made  that 
no  peanuts  can  be  brought  into  the  park.  I 
should  have  thought  that  peanuts  were  an  in- 
alienable right  for  captive  monkeys.  The  order 
posted  everywhere  that  one  must  not  give  the 
animals  tobacco  seems  almost  unnecessary  now- 
adays, with  the  weed  at  present  prices.  The 
Urchin  was  greatly  interested  in  the  baboon 
rummaging  in  his  straw.  "Mokey  kicking  the 
grass  away/'  he  observed  thoughtfully. 

Down  in  the  grizzly-bear  pit  one  of  the 
bears  squatted  himself  in  the  pool  and  sat 
there,  grinning  complacently  at  the  crowd.  We 
explained  that  the  bear  was  taking  a  bath.  This 
presented  a  familar  train  of  thought  to  the 
Urchin  and  he  watched  the  grizzly  climb  out 
of  his  tank  and  scatter  the  water  over  the  stone 
floor.  As  we  walked  away  the  Urchin  observed 
thoughtfully,  "He's  dying."  This  somewhat 
shocked  the  curators,  who  did  not  know  that 
their  offspring  had  even  heard  of  death.  "What 
does  he  mean.^"  we  asked  ourselves.  "He's 
dying,' '  repeated  the  Urchin  in  a  tone  of  happy 
conviction.  Then  the  explanation  struck  us. 
"He's  drying!"  "Quite  right,"  we  said.  "After 
his  bath  he  has  to  dry  himself." 

[137] 


Mince  Pie 

We  went  home  on  a  crowded  Girard  Avenue 
car^  thinking  impatiently  that  it  will  be  some 
time  before  we  can  read  "The  Jmigle  Book" 
to  the  Urchin.  In  the  summer,  when  the  ele- 
phants take  their  bath  outdoors,  we'll  go  again. 
And  the  last  thing  the  Urchin  said  that  night  as 
he  fell  asleep  was,  "Mokey  kicking  the  grass 
away." 


[138] 


FELLOW  CRAFTSMEN 

ROBERT  URWICK,  the  author,  was  not  yet 
so  calloused  by  success  that  he  was  im- 
mune from  flattery.  And  so  when  he  received 
the  following  letter  he  was  rather  pleased: 

Mr.  Robt.  Urwick,  dear  sir  I  seen  your  story 
in  this  weeks  Saturday  Evn  Cudgel,  not  that 
I  can  afford  to  *my  journals  of  that  stamp  but 
I  pick  up  the  copy  on  a  bench  in  the  park. 
Now  Mr.  Urwick  I  am  a  poor  man  but  I  was 
brought  up  a  patron  of  the  arts  and  I  am  bound 
to  say  that  story  of  yours  called  Brass  Nuckles 
was  a  fine  story  and  I  am  proud  to  compliment 
you  upon  it.  Mr.  Urwick  that  brings  me  to 
another  matter  upon  which  I  have  been  intend- 
ing to  write  you  upon  for  a  long  time  but  did 
not  like  to  risk  an  intrusion.  I  used  to  dable 
in  literature  to  some  little  extent  myself  if  that 
will  lend  a  fellow  feeling  for  a  craftsman  in 
distress.  I  am  a  poor  man,  out  of  work  through 
no  fault  of  mine  but  on  account  of  the  illness 
of  my  wife  and  my  sitting  up  with  her  at  nights 
for  weeks  and  weeks  I  could  not  hold  my  job 

[139] 


Mince  Pie 

whch  required  mentle  concentration  of  a  vigor- 
ous sort  Now  Mr.  Urwick  I  have  a  sick  wife 
and  seven  children  to  support,  and  the  rent 
shortly  due  and  the  landlord  threatens  to  eject 
us  if  I  don't  pay  what  I  owe.  As  it  happens 
my  wife  and  I  are  hoping  to  be  blessed  again 
soon,  with  our  eighth.  Owing  to  my  love  and 
devotion  for  the  fine  arts  we  have  named  all 
the  earlier  children  for  noted  authors  or  writers 
ORudyard  Kipling,  W.  J.  Bryan,  Mark  Twain, 
Debs,  Irvin  Cobb,  Walt  Mason  and  Ella 
Wheeler  Wilcox.  Now  Mr.  Urwick  I  thought 
that  I  would  name  the  next  one  after  you,  see- 
ing you  have  done  so  much  for  literature  Robert 
if  a  boy  or  Roberta  if  a  girl  with  Urwick  for 
a  middle  name  thus  making  you  a  godfather  in 
a  manner  of  speaking.  I  was  wondering 
whether  you  would  not  feel  like  making  a  little 
godfathers  gift  for  this  innocent  babe  now  about 
to  come  into  the  world  and  to  bare  your  name. 
Say  twenty  dollars,  but  not  a  check  if  it  can 
be  avoided  as  owing  to  tempry  ambarrassment 
I  am  not  holding  any  bank  account,  and  cur- 
rency would  be  easier  for  me  to  convert  inta 
the  necesity  of  life. 

I  wrote  this  letter  once  before  but  tore  it 
up  fearing  to  intrude,  but  now  my  need  compels 
me  to  be  frank.     I  hope  you  will  adorn  our  lit- 
[140] 


Fellow  Craftsmen 

erature  with  many  more  beautiful  compositions 
similiar  to  Brass  Nuckles. 

Yours  truly 

Mr  Henry  Phillips 

454  East  34  St. 

Mr.  Urwick,  after  reading  this  remarkable 
tribute  twice,  laughed  heartily  and  looked  in 
his  bill-folder.  Finding  there  a  crisp  ten-dollar 
note,  he  folded  it  into  an  envelope  and  mailed 
it  to  his  admirer,  inclosing  with  it  a  friendly 
letter  wishing  success  to  the  coming  infant  who 
was  to  carry  his  name. 

A  fortnight  later  he  found  on  his  breakfast 
table  a  very  soiled  postal  card  with  this  mes- 
sage: 

Dear  and  kind  friend,  the  babe  arrived  and 
to  the  joy  of  all  is  a  boy  and  has  been  cristened 
Robert  Urwick  Phillips.  Unfortunately  he  is  a 
sicly  infant  and  the  doctor  says  he  must  have 
port  wine  at  once  or  he  may  not  survive.  His 
mother  and  I  were  overjoyed  at  your  munificant 
gift  and  hope  some  day  to  tell  the  boy  of  his 
beanefactor,  Mr.  Kipling  only  sent  five  spot 
to  his  namesake.  Do  you  think  you  could  spare 
five  dollars  to  help  pay  for  port  wine 
Yours  gratefully 

Henry  Phillips? 

Mr.  Urwick  was  a  little  surprised  at  the 
thought   of  port  wine   for  one  so  young,  but 

[141] 


Mince  Pie 

happening  to  be  bound  down  town  that  morn- 
ing he  thought  it  might  be  interesting  to  look 
in  at  Mr.  Phillips*  residence  and  find  out  how 
his  godchild  was  faring.  If  the  child  were 
really  in  distress  he  might  perhaps  contribute 
a  small  sum  to  insure  proper  medical  care. 

The  address  proved  to  be  a  shabby  tenement 
house  hedged  by  saloons.  A  ragged  little  girl 
(he  wondered  whether  she  were  Ella  Wheeler 
Wilcox  Phillips)  pointed  him  to  Mr.  Phillips's 
door.     Meeting  no  answer,  he  entered. 

The  room  was  empty — a  single  room,  with 
a  cot  bed,  an  oil  stove  and  a  table  littered  with 
stationery  and  stamps.  Of  Mrs.  Phillips,  his 
namesake  or  the  other  seven  he  saw  no  signs. 
He  advanced  to  the  table. 

Evidently  Mr.  Phillips  was  not  a  ready  writer 
and  his  letters  cost  him  some  pains.  Several 
lay  open  on  the  table  in  different  stages  of 
composition.  They  were  all  exactly  the  same 
in  wording  as  the  first  one  Urwick  had  re- 
ceived. They  were  addressed  to  Booth  Tark- 
ington,  Don  Marquis,  Ellen  Glasgow,  Edna 
Ferber,  Agnes  Repplier,  Holworthy  Hall  and 
Fannie  Hurst.  Each  letter  offered  to  name 
pome  coming  child  after  these  Parnassians. 
Near  by  lay  a  pile  of  old  magazines  from  which 
the  industrious  Mr.  Phillips  evidently  culled 
the  names  of  his  literary  favorites. 
[142] 


Fellow  Craftsmen 

Urwick  smiled  grimly  and  tiptoed  from  the 
room.  On  the  stairs  he  met  a  fat  charwoman. 
He  asked  her  if  Mr.  Phillips  were  married. 
"Whisky  is  his  wife  and  child/*  she  replied. 

A  month  later  Urwick  put  Phillips  into  a 
story  which  he  sold  to  the  Saturday  Evening 
Cudgel  for  $500.  When  it  was  published  he 
sent  a  marked  copy  of  the  magazine  to  the 
father  of  Robert  Urwick  Phillips  with  the  fol- 
lowing note: 

"Dear  Mr.  Phillips — I  owe  you  about  $490. 
Come  around  some  day  and  I'll  blow  you  to 
-lunch." 


[143] 


THE  KEY  RING 


I  KNOW  a  man  who  carries  in  his  left-leg 
trouser  pocket  a  large  heavy  key  ring,  on 
which  there  are  a  dozen  or  more  keys  of  all 
shapes  and  sizes.  There  is  a  latchkey,  and 
the  key  of  his  private  office,  and  the  Itey  of  his 
roll-top  desk,  and  the  key  of  his  safe  deposit 
box,  and  a  key  to  the  little  mail  box  at  the  front 
door  of  his  flat  (he  lives  in  what  is  known  as 
a  pushbutton  apartment  house),  and  a  key  that 
does  something  to  his  motor  car  (not  being  an 
automobilist,  I  don*t  know  just  what),  and  a 
key  to  his  locker  at  the  golf  club,  and  keys  of 
various  traveling  bags  and  trunks  and  filing 
cases,  and  all  the  other  keys  with  which  a  busy 
[144] 


The  Key  Ring 

man  burdens  hitnself.  They  make  a  noble 
clanking  against  his  thigh  when  he  walks  (he 
is  usually  in  a  hurry),  and  he  draws  them  out 
of  his  pocket  with  something  of  an  imposing 
gesture  when  he  approaches  the  ground  glass 
door  of  his  office  at  ten  past  nine  every  morn- 
ing. Yet  sometimes  he  takes  them  out  and 
looks  at  them  sadly.  They  are  a  mark  and 
symbol  of  servitude,  just  as  surely  as  if  they 
had  been  heated  red-hot  and  branded  on  his 
skin. 

Not  necessarily  an  unhappy  servitude,  I 
hasten  to  remark,  for  servitude  is  not  always  an 
unhappy  condition.  It  may  be  the  happiest 
of  conditions,  and  each  of  those  little  metal 
strips  may  be  regarded  as  a  medal  of  honor.  In 
fact,  my  friend  does  so  regard  them.  He  does 
not  think  of  the  key  of  his  roll-top  desk  as  a 
reminder  of  hateful  tasks  that  must  be  done 
willy-nilly,  but  rather  as  an  emblem  of  hard 
work  that  he  enjoys  and  that  is  worth  doing. 
He  does  not  think  of  the  latchkey  as  a  mandate 
that  he  must  be  home  by  seven  o'clock,  rain  or 
shine;  nor  does  he  thing  of  it  as  a  souvenir  of 
the  landlord  who  must  be  infallibly  paid  on  the 
first  of  the  month  next  ensuing.  No,  he  thinks 
of  the  latchkey  as  a  magic  wand  that  admits 
him  to  a  realm  of  kindness  "whose  service  is 
perfect  freedom,"  as  say  the  fine  old  words  in 

[145] 


Mince  Pie 

the  prayer  book.  And  he  does  not  think  of 
his  safe  deposit  box  as  a  hateful  little  casket 
of  leases  and  life  insurance  policies  and  con- 
tracts and  wills,  but  rather  as  the  place  where 
he  has  put  some  of  his  own  past  life  into  vol- 
untary bondage — into  Liberty  Bondage — at 
four  and  a  quarter  per  cent.  Yet,  however 
blithely  he  may  psychologize  these  matters,  he 
is  wise  enough  to  know  that  he  is  not  a  free 
man.  However  content  in  servitude,  he  does 
not  blink  the  fact  that  it  is  servitude. 

"Upon  his  will  he  binds  a  radiant  chain," 
said  Joyce  Kilmer  in  a  fine  sonnet.  However 
radiant,  it  is  still  a  chain. 

So  it  is  that  sometimes,  in  the  lulls  of  tele- 
phoning and  signing  contracts  and  talking  to 
salesmen  and  preparing  estimates  and  dictating 
letters  *'that  must  get  off  to-night"  and  trying 
to  wriggle  out  of  serving  on  the  golf  club's 
house  committee,  my  friend  flings  away  his 
cigar,  gets  a  corncob  pipe  out  of  his  desk 
drawer,  and  contemplates  his  key  ring  a  trifle 
wistfully.  This  nubby  little  tyrant  that  he 
carries  about  with  him  always  makes  him  think 
of  a  river  in  the  far  Canadian  north,  a  river 
that  he  visited  once,  long  ago,  before  he  had 
built  up  all  the  barbed  wire  of  life  about  his 
spirit.  It  was  a  green  lucid  river  that  ran  in 
a  purposeful  way  between  long  fringes  of  pine 
[146] 


The  Key  Ring 

trees.  There  were  sandy  shelves  where  he  and 
a  fellow  canoeist  with  the  good  gift  of  silence 
built  campfires  and  fried  bacon,  or  fish  of  their 
own  wooing.  The  name  of  that  little  river 
(his  voice  is  grave  as  he  recalls  it),  was  the 
Peace ;  and  it  was  not  necessary  to  paddle  if  you 
didn't  feel  like  it.  **The  current  ran"  (it  is 
pathetic  to  hear  him  say  it)  "from  four  to  seven 
miles  an  hour.'* 

The  tobacco  smoke  sifts  and  eddies  into  the 
carefully  labeled  pigeonholes  of  his  desk,  and 
his  stenographer  wonders  whether  she  dare  in- 
terrupt him  to  ask  whether  that  word  was  "pri- 
ority" or  "minority"  in  the  second  paragraph 
of  the  memo  to  Mr.  Ebbsmith.  He  smells  that 
bacon  again;  he  remembers  stretching  out  on 
the  cool  sand  to  watch  the  dusk  seep  up  from 
the  valley  and  flood  the  great  clear  arch  of 
green-blue  sky.  He  remembers  that  there  were 
no  key  rings  in  his  pocket  then,  no  papers,  no 
letters,  no  engagements  to  meet  Mr.  Fonseca 
at  a  luncheon  of  the  Rotary  Club  to  discuss 
demurrage.  He  remembers  the  clear  sparkle 
of  the  Peace  water  in  the  sunshine,  its  down- 
ward swell  and  slant  over  many  a  boulder,  its 
milky  vexation  where  it  slid  among  stones.  He 
remembers  what  he  had  said  to  himself  then, 
but  had  since  forgotten,  that  no  matter  what 
wounds    and   perplexities   the   world   offers,   it 

[147] 


Mince  Pie 

also  offers  a  cure  for  each  one  if  we  know  where 
to  seek  it.  Suddenly  he  gets  a  vision  of  the 
whole  race  of  men,  campers  out  on  a  swinging 
ball,  brothers  in  the  common  motherhood  of 
earth.  Born  out  of  the  same  inexplicable  soil, 
bred  to  the  same  problems  of  star  and  wind  and 
sun,  what  absurdity  of  civilization  is  it  that 
has  robbed  men  of  this  sense  of  kinship?  Why 
he  himself,  he  feels,  could  enter  a  Bedouin 
tent  or  an  Eskimo  snow-hut  and  find  some  bond 
of  union  with  the  inmates.  The  other  night, 
he  reflects,  he  saw  moving  pictures  of  some  Fiji 
natives,  and  could  read  in  their  genial  grinning 
faces  the  same  human  impulses  he  knew  in  him- 
self. What  have  men  done  to  cheat  themselves 
of  the  enjoyment  of  this  amazing  world? 
"We've  been  cheated!"  he  cries,  to  the  stenog- 
rapher's horror. 

He  thinks  of  his  friends,  his  partners,  his 
employees,  of  conductors  on  trains  and  waiters 
in  lunchrooms  and  drivers  of  taxicabs.  He 
thinks,  in  one  amazing  flash  of  realization,  of 
all  the  men  and  women  he  has  ever  seen  or 
heard  of — how  each  one  nourishes  secretly  some 
little  rebellion,  some  dream  of  a  wider,  freer 
life,  a  life  less  hampered,  less  mean,  less  ma- 
terial. He  thinks  how  all  men  yearn  to  cross 
salt  water,  to  scale  peaks,  to  tramp  until  weary 
under  a  hot  sun.  He  hears  the  Peace,  in  its  far 
[148] 


The  Key  Ring 

northern  valley,  brawling  among  stones,  and 
his  heart  is  very  low. 

"Mr.  Edwards  to  see  you,"  says  the  stenog- 
rapher. 

**I*m  sorry,  sir,**  says  Edwards,  **but  I've 
had  the  offer  of  another  job  and  I  think  I  shall 
accept  it.  It's  a  good  thing  for  a  chap  to  get 
a  chance '* 

My  friend  slips  the  key  ring  back  in  his 
pocket. 

"What's  this?**  he  says.  "Nonsense!  When 
you've  got  a  good  job,  the  thing  to  do  is  to 
keep  it.  Stick  to  it,  my  boy.  There's  a  great 
future  for  you  here.  Don't  get  any  of  those 
fool  ideas  about  changing  around  from  one 
thing  to  another." 


[149] 


"OWD  BOB" 

Chapter   I 

(introduces   our   hero) 

LOITERING  perchance  on  the  western 
pavement  of  Madison  avenue,  between  the 
streets  numbered  38  and  39,  and  gazing  with 
an  observant  eye  upon  the  pedestrians  passing 
southward,  you  would  be  likely  to  see,  about 
8:40  o'clock  of  the  morning,  a  gentleman  of 
remarkable  presence  approaching  with  no  bird- 
like tread.  This  creature,  clad  in  a  suit  of  sub- 
fuse  respectable  weave,  bearing  in  his  hand  a 
cane  of  stout  timber  with  a  right-angled  horn- 
blende grip,  and  upon  his  head  a  hat  of  rich 
texture,  would  probably  also  carry  in  one  hand 
(the  left)  a  leather  case  filled  with  valuable 
papers,  and  in  the  other  hand  (the  right,  which 
also  held  the  cane)  a  cigarette,  lit  upon  leaving 
the  Grand  Central  subway  station.  This  cigar- 
ette the  person  of  our  tale  would  frequentatively 
apply  to  his  lips,  and  then  withdraw  with  a 
[150] 


"Owd  Bob" 

quick^  swooping  motion.  With  a  rapid,  some- 
what sidelong  gait  (at  first  somehow  clumsy, 
yet  upon  closer  observation  a  mode  of  motion 
seen  to  embrace  certain  elements  of  harmony) 
this  gentleman  would  converge  upon  the  south- 
west corner  of  Madison  avenue  and  38th  street; 
and  the  intent  observer,  noting  the  menacing 
contours  of  the  face,  would  conclude  that  he 
was  going  to  work. 


This  gentleman,  beneath  his  sober  but  ex- 
cellently haberdashered  surtout,  was  plainly  a 
man  of  large  frame,  of  a  Sam  Johnsonian 
mould,  but,  to  the  surprise  of  the  calculating 
observer,  it  would  be  noted  that  his  volume 
(or  mass)  was  not  what  his  bony  structure  im- 
plied. Spiritually,  in  deed,  this  interesting 
individual  conveyed  to  the  world  a  sensation  of 
stoutness,  of  bulk  and  solidity,  which  (upon 
scrutiny)  was  not  (or  would  not  be)  verified  by 
measurement.  Evidently,  you  will  conclude, 
a  stout  man  grown  thin;  or,  at  any  rate,  grown 

[151] 


Mince  Pie 

less  stout.  His  molded  depth,  one  might 
assess  at  20  inches  between  the  eaves ;  his  longi- 
tude, say,  five  feet  eleven;  his  registered  ton- 
nage, 170;  his  cargo,  literary;  and  his  destina- 
tion, the  editorial  sancta  of  a  well-known  pub- 
lishing house. 

This  gentleman,  in  brief,  is  Mr.  Robert  Cortes 
HoUiday  (but  not  the  "stout  Cortes"  of  the 
poet),  the  editor  of  The  Boahman* 


Chapter  II 

(our  hero  begins  a  career) 

"It  would  seem  that  whenever  Nature  had  a  man 
of  letters  up  her  sleeve,  the  first  gift  with  which  she 
has  felt  necessary  to  dower  him  has  been  a  preacher 
sire." 

R.  C.  H.  of  N.  B.  Tarkington. 

Mr.  Holliday  was  born  in  Indianapolis  on 
July  18,  1880.  It  is  evident  that  ink,  piety 
and  copious  speech  circulated  in  the  veins  of 
his  clan,  for  at  least  two  of  his  grandfathers 
were  parsons,  and  one  of  them.  Dr.  Ferdinand 
Cortez  Holliday,  was  the  author  of  a  volume 
called  ''Indiana  Methodism"  in  which  he  was 
the  biographer  of  the  Rev.  Joseph  Tarkington, 
the  grandfather  of  Newton  B.  Tarkington, 
sometimes  heard  of  as  Booth  Tarkington,  a 
[162] 


"Owd  Bob" 

novelist  Thus  the  hand  of  Robert  C.  HoUi- 
day  was  linked  by  the  manacle  of  destiny  to 
the  hand  of  Newton  B.  Tarkington^  and  it  is 
a  quaint  satisfaction  to  note  that  Mr.  Holliday*s 
first  book  was  that  volume  "Booth  Tarkington/' 
one  of  the  liveliest  and  soundest  critical  me- 
moirs it  has  been  our  fortune  to  enjoy. 

Like  all  denizens  of  Indianapolis — "Tarking- 
tonapolis,"  Mr.  Holliday  calls  it — our  subject 
will  discourse  at  considerable  volume  of  his 
youth  in  that  high-spirited  city.  His  recollec- 
tions, both  sacred  and  profane,  are,  however, 
not  in  our  present  channel.  After  a  reputable 
schooling  young  Robert  proceeded  to  New  York 
in  1899  to  study  art  at  the  Art  Students'  League, 
and  later  became  a  pupil  of  Twachtman.  The 
present  commentator  is  not  in  a  position  to 
say  how  severely  either  art  or  Mr.  Holliday 
suffered  in  the  mutual  embrace.  I  have  seen 
some  of  his  black  and  white  posters  which 
seemed  to  me  robust  and  considerably  lively. 
At  any  rate,  Mr.  Holliday  exhibited  drawings 
on  Fifth  avenue  and  had  illustrative  work  pub- 
lished by  Scrihner's  Magazine.  He  did  com- 
mercial designs  and  comic  pictures  for  juvenile 
readers.  At  this  time  he  lived  in  a  rural  com- 
munity of  artists  in  Connecticut,  and  did  his 
own  cooking.  Also,  he  is  proud  of  having  lived 
in  a  garret  on  Broome  street.     This  phase  of 

[163] 


Mince  Pie 

his  career  is  not  to  be  slurred  over,  for  it  is  a 
clue  to  much  of  his  later  work.  His  writing 
often  displays  the  keen  eye  of  the  painter,  and 
his  familiarity  with  the  technique  of  pencil 
and  brush  has  much  enriched  his  capacity  to 
see  and  to  make  his  reader  see  with  him.  Such 
essays  as  **Going  to  Art  Exhibitions/'  and  the 
one-third  dedication  of  "Walking-Stick  Papers" 
to  Royal  Cortissoz  are  due  to  his  interest  in  the 
world  as  pictures. 

While  we  think  of  it,  then,  let  us  put  down 
our  first  memorandum  upon  the  art  of  Mr.  Hol- 
liday : 

First  Memo — Mr.  Holliday's  stuff  is  distilled 
from  life! 

Chapter  III 

(in  which  our  hero  darts  off  at  a  tangent) 

It  is  not  said  why  our  hero  abandoned  bristol 
board  and  india  ink,  and  it  is  no  duty  of  this  in- 
quirendo  to  oiFer  surmise.  The  fact  is  that 
he  disappeared  from  Broome  street,  and  after 
the  appropriate  interval  might  have  been  ob- 
served (odd  as  it  seems)  on  the  campus  of  the 
University  of  Kansas.  This  vault  into  the  pet- 
als of  the  sunflower  seems  so  quaint  that  I  once 
attempted  to  find  out  from  Mr.  Holliday  just 
when  it  was  that  he  attended  courses  at  that 
[154] 


"Owd  Bob" 

institution.  He  frankly  said  that  he  could  not 
remember.  Now  he  has  no  memory  at  all  for 
dates,  I  will  vouch;  yet  it  seems  odd  (I  say) 
that  he  did  not  even  remember  the  numerals 
of  the  class  in  which  he  was  enrolled.  A  "queer 
feller,"  indeed,  as  Mr.  Tarkington  has  called 
him.  So  I  cannot  attest,  with  hand  on  Book, 
that  he  really  was  at  Kansas  University.  He 
may  have  been  a  footpad  during  that  period. 
I  have  often  thought  to  write  to  the  dean  of  the 
university  and  check  the  matter  up.  It  may 
be  that  entertaining  anecdotes  of  our  hero's 
college  career  could  be  spaded  up. 

Just  why  this  remote  atheneum  was  sconce 
for  Mr.  Holliday's  candle  I  do  not  hazard. 
It  seems  I  have  heard  him  say  that  his  cousin. 
Professor  Wilbur  Cortez  Abbott  (of  Yale) 
was  then  teaching  at  the  Kansas  college,  and 
this  was  the  reason.  It  doesn't  matter  now; 
fifty  years  hence  it  may  be  of  considerable  im- 
portance. 

However,  we  must  press  on  a  little  faster. 
From  Kansas  he  returned  to  New  York  and  be- 
came a  salesman  in  the  book  store  of  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons,  then  on  Fifth  avenue  below 
Twenty-third  street.  Here  he  was  employed 
for  about  five  years.  From  this  experience  may 
be  traced  three  of  the  most  delightful  of  the 
"Walking-Stick    Papers."      It    was    while    at 

[156] 


Mince  Pie 

Scribner*s  that  he  met  Joyce  Kilmer,  who  also 
served  as  a  Scribner  book-clerk  for  two  weeks 
in  1909.  This  friendship  meant  more  to  Bob 
HoUiday  than  any  other.  The  two  men  were 
united  by  intimate  adhesions  of  temperament 
and  worldly  situation.  Those  who  know  what 
friendship  means  among  men  who  have  stood 
on  the  bottom  rung  together  will  ask  no  further 
comment.  Kilmer  was  Holliday*s  best  man  in 
1913;  Holliday  stood  godfather  to  Kilmer's 
daughter  Rose.  On  Aug.  22,  1918,  Mrs.  Kil- 
mer appointed  Mr.  Holliday  her  husband's  lit- 
erary executor.  His  memoir  of  Joyce  Kilmer 
is  a  fitting  token  of  the  manly  affection  that 
sweetens  life  and  enriches  him  who  even  sees 
it  from  a  distance. 

Just  when  Holliday's  connection  with  the 
Scribner  store  ceased  I  do  not  know.  My  guess 
is,  about  1911-  He  did  some  work  for  the  New 
York  Public  Library  (tucking  away  in  his  files 
the  material  for  the  essay  "Human  Municipal 
Documents")  and  also  dabbled  in  eleemosynary 
science  for  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation ;  though 
the  details  of  the  latter  enterprise  I  cannot  even 
conjecture.  Somehow  or  other  he  fell  into  the 
most  richly  amusing  post  that  a  belletristic  jour- 
nalist ever  adorned,  as  general  factotum  of 
The  Fishing  Gazette,  a  trade  journal.  This  is 
laid  bare  for  the  world  in  "The  Fish  Reporter." 
[156] 


"Owd  Bob" 

About  1911  he  began  to  contribute  humorous 
sketches  to  the  Saturday  Magazine  of  the  New 
York  Evening  Post.  In  1912-13  he  was  writing 
signed  reviews  for  the  New  York  Times  Review 
of  Books.  1913-14  he  was  assistant  literary- 
editor  of  the  New  York  Tribune.  His  medi- 
tations on  the  reviewing  job  are  embalmed  in 


"That  Reviewer  Cuss."  In  1914  the  wear  and 
tear  of  continual  hard  work  on  Grub  Street 
rather  got  the  better  of  him:  he  packed  a  bag 
and  spent  the  summer  in  England.  Four  charm- 
ing essays  record  his  adventures  there,  where 
we  may  leave  him  for  the  moment  while  we 
warm  up  to  another  aspect  of  the  problem.  Let 
us  just  set  down  our  second  memorandum: 

Second  Memo — Mr.  Holliday  knows  the  Lit- 
erary Game  from  All  Angles! 

Chapter  IV 

(OTTR  hero's  book  AND  HEART  SHALL  NEYER 

part) 

Perhaps  I  should  apologize  for  treating  Mr. 
HoUiday's  "Walking-Stick  Papers"  in  this  bio- 

[157] 


Mince  Pie 

graphical  fashion.  And  yet  I  cannot  resist  it, 
for  this  book  is  Mr.  Holliday  himself.  It  is 
mellow,  odd,  aromatic  and  tender,  just  as  he 
is.  It  is  (as  he  said  of  something  else)  "sat- 
urated with  a  distinguished,  humane  tradition 
of  letters." 

The  book  is  exciting  reading  because  you  can 
trace  in  it  the  growth  and  felicitous  toughening 
of  a  very  remarkable  talent.  Mr.  Holliday  has 
been  through  a  lively  and  gruelling  mill.  Like 
every  sensitive  journalist,  he  has  been  mangled 
at  Ephesus.  Slight  and  debonair  as  some  of 
his  pieces  are,  there  is  not  one  that  is  not  an 
authentic  fiber  from  life.  That  is  the  beauty  of 
this  sort  of  writing — the  personal  essay — it  ad- 
mits us  to  the  very  pulse  of  the  machine.  We 
see  this  man:  selling  books  at  Scribner's,  pac- 
ing New  York  streets  at  night  gloating  on  the 
yellow  windows  and  the  random  ring  of  words, 
fattening  his  spirit  on  hundreds  of  books,  con- 
cocting his  own  theory  of  the  niceties  of 
prose.  We  see  that  volatile  humor  which  is 
native  in  him  flickering  like  burning  brandy 
round  the  rich  plum  pudding  of  his  theme. 
With  all  his  playfulness,  when  he  sets  out  to 
achieve  a  certain  effect  he  builds  cunningly, 
with  sure  and  skillful  art.  See  (for  instance)  in 
his  "As  to  People,"  his  superbly  satisfying 
picture  (how  careless  it  seems !)  of  his  scrub- 
[158] 


"Owd  Bob" 

woman,  closing  with  the  precis  of  Billy  Hender- 
son's wife,  which  drives  the  nail  through  and 
turns  it  on  the  under  side — 

BiUy  Henderson's  wife  is  handsome;  she  is  rich;  she 
is  an  excellent  cook;  she  loves  Billy  Henderson. 

See  **My  friend  the  Policeman/'  or  "On  Go- 
ing a  Journey/'  or  "The  Deceased" — this  last 
is  perhaps  the  high-water  mark  of  the  book. 
To  vary  the  figure,  this  essay  dips  its  Plimsoll- 
mark  full  under.  It  is  freighted  with  far  more 
than  a  dozen  pages  might  be  expected  to  carry 
safely.  So  quietly,  so  quaintly  told,  what  a 
wealth  of  humanity  is  in  it!  Am  I  wrong  in 
thinking  that  those  fellow-artists  who  know 
the  thrill  of  a  great  thing  greatly  done  will 
catch  breath  when  they  read  this,  of  the  minor 
obits  in  the  press — 

We  go  into  the  feature  headed  "Died,"  a  depart- 
ment similar  to  that  on  the  literary  page  headed 
"Books  Received."  .  .  .  We  are  set  in  small  type, 
with  lines  following  the  name  line  indented.  It  is 
difficult  for  me  to  tell  with  certainty  from  the  print- 
ed page,  but  I  think  we  are  set  without  leads. 

In  such  passages,  where  the  easy  sporting- 
tweed  fabric  of  Mr.  HoUiday's  merry  and  lib- 
eral style  fits  his  theme  as  snugly  as  the  burr 
its  nut,  one  feels  tempted  to  cry  joyously  (as 
he  says  in  some  other  connection),  "it  seems  as 

[159] 


Mince  Pie 

if  it  were  a  book  you  had  written  yourself  in 
a  dream."  And  follow  him,  for  sheer  fun,  in 
the  "Going  a  Journey"  essay.  Granted  that  it 
would  never  have  been  written  but  for  Hazlitt 
and  Stevenson  and  Belloc.  Yet  it  is  fresh  dis- 
tilled, it  has  its  own  sparkle.  Beginning  with 
an  even  pace,  how  it  falls  into  a  swinging  stride, 
drugs  you  with  hilltops  and  blue  air!  Crisp, 
metrical,  with  a  steady  drum  of  feet,  it  lifts, 
purges  and  sustains.  "This  is  the  religious 
side"  of  reading  an  essay! 

Mr.  Holliday,  then,  gives  us  in  generous 
measure  the  "certain  jolly  humors"  which 
R.  L.  S.  says  we  voyage  to  find.  He  throws 
off  flashes  of  imaginative  felicity — as  where  he 
says  of  canes,  "They  are  the  light  to  blind 
men."  Where  he  describes  Mr.  Oliver  Herford 
"listing  to  starboard,  like  a  postman."  Where 
he  says  of  the  English  who  use  colloquially 
phrases  known  to  us  only  in  great  literature — 
"There  are  primroses  in  their  speech."  And 
where  he  begins  his  "Memoirs  of  a  Manuscript," 
"I  was  born  in  Indiana." 

We  are  now  ready  to  let  fall  our  third  memo- 
randum : 

Third  Memo — Behind  his  colloquial,  easy- 
going (apparently  careless)  utterance,  Mr. 
Holliday  conceals  a  high  quality  of  literary  art. 

[160] 


"Owd  Bob" 

Chapter  V 

(further  oscillations  op  our  hzao) 

Mr.  Holliday  was  driven  home  from  England 
and  Police  Constable  Buckington  by  the  war, 
irhich  broke  out  while  he  was  living  in  Chelsea. 
My  chronology  is  a  bit  mixed  here;  just  what 
he  was  doing  from  autumn,  1914,  to  February, 
1916,  I  don't  know.  Was  it  then  that  he  held 
the  fish  reporter  job?  Come  to  think  of  it, 
I  believe  it  was.  Anyway,  in  February,  191 6, 
he  turned  up  in  Garden  City,  Long  Island, 
where  I  first  had  the  excitement  of  clapping 
eyes  on  him.  Some  of  the  adventures  of  that 
spring  and  summer  may  be  inferred  from 
''Memories  of  a  Manuscript.'*  Others  took 
place  in  the  austere  lunch  cathedral  known  at 
the  press  of  Doubleday,  Page  &  Company  as 
the  "garage,"  or  on  walks  that  summer  between 
the  Country  Life  Press  and  the  neighboring 
champaigns  of  Hempstead.  The  full  story  of 
the  Porrier's  Corner  Club,  of  which  Mr.  Holli- 
day and  myself  are  the  only  members,  is  yet 
to  be  told.  As  far  as  I  was  concerned  it  was 
love  at  first  sight.  This  burly  soul,  rumbling 
Johnsonianly  upon  lettered  topics,  puffing  un- 
ending Virginia  cigarettes,  gazing  with  shy 
humor  through  thick-paned  spectacles — well^  on 

[161] 


Mince  Pie 

Friday,  June  23,  1916,  Bob  and  I  decided  to 
collaborate  in  writing  a  farcical  novel.  It  is 
still  unwritten,  save  the  first  few  chapters.  I 
only  instance  this  to  show  how  fast  passion 
proceeded. 

It  would  not  surprise  me  if  at  some  future 
time  Mrs.  Bedell's  boarding  house,  on  Jackson 
Street  in  Hempstead,  becomes  a  place  of  pil- 
grimage for  lovers  of  the  essay.  They  will 
want  to  see  the  dark  little  front  room  on  the 
ground  floor  where  Owd  Bob  used  to  scatter  the 
sheets  of  his  essays  as  he  was  retyping  them 
from  a  huge  scrapbook  and  grooming  them  for 
a  canter  among  publishers'  sanhedrim.  They 
will  want  to  see  (but  will  not,  I  fear)  the  cool 
barrel-room  at  the  back  of  George  D.  Smith's 
tavern,  an  ale-house  that  was  blithe  to  our 
fancy  because  the  publican  bore  the  same  name 
as  that  of  a  very  famous  dealer  in  rare  books. 
Along  that  pleasant  bar,  with  its  shining  brass 
scuppers,  Bob  and  I  consumed  many  beakers 
of  well-chilled  amber  during  that  warm  sum- 
mer. His  urbanolatrous  soul  pined  for  the 
city,  and  he  used  in  those  days  to  expound  the 
doctrine  that  the  suburbanite  really  has  to  go 
to  town  in  order  to  get  fresh  air. 

In  September,  191 6,  HoUiday's  health  broke 
down.  He  had  been  feeling  poorly  most  of  the 
summer,  and  continuous  hard  work  induced  a 
[162] 


"Owd  Bob" 

spell  of  nervous  depression.  Very  wisely  he 
went  back  to  Indianapolis  to  rest.  After  a 
good  lay-off  he  tackled  the  Tarkington  book, 
which  was  written  in  Indianapolis  the  following 
winter  and  spring.  And  "Walking-Stick  Pa- 
pers" began  to  go  the  rounds. 

I  have  alluded  more  than  once  to  Mr.  HoUi- 
day's  book  on  Tarkington.  This  original,  mel- 
low, convivial,  informal  and  yet  soundly  argued 
critique  has  been  overlooked  by  many  who  have 
delighted  to  honor  Holliday  as  an  essayist. 
But  it  is  vastly  worth  reading.  It  is  a  brilliant 
study,  full  of  **onion  atoms"  as  Sydney  Smith's 
famous  salad,  and  we  flaunt  it  merrily  in  the 
face  of  those  who  are  frequently  crapehanging 
and  dirging  that  we  have  no  sparkling  young 
Chestertons  and  Rebecca  Wests  and  J.  C. 
Squires  this  side  of  Queenstown  harbor.  Rarely 
have  creator  and  critic  been  joined  in  so  felic- 
itous a  marriage.  And  indeed  the  union  was 
appointed  in  heaven  and  smiles  in  the  blood, 
for  (as  I  have  noted)  Mr.  Holliday 's  grand- 
father was  the  biographer  of  Tarkington 's 
grandsire,  also  a  pioneer  preacher  of  the  meta- 
physical commonwealth  of  Indiana.  Mr.  Hol- 
liday traces  with  a  good  deal  of  humor  and 
circumstance  the  various  ways  in  which  the  gods 
gave  Mr.  Tarkington  just  the  right  kind  of 
ancestry,     upbringing,     boyhood     and     college 

[163] 


Mince  Pie 

career  to  produce  a  talented  writer.  But  the 
fates  that  catered  to  Tarkington  with  such  gen- 
erous hand  never  dealt  him  a  better  run  of 
cards  than  when  HoUiday  wrote  this  book. 

The  study  is  one  of  surpassing  interest,  not 
merely  as  a  service  to  native  criticism  but  as  a 
revelation  of  Holliday*s  ability  to  follow 
through  a  sustained  intellectual  task  with  the 
same  grasp  and  grace  that  he  afterward  showed 
in  the  memoir  of  Kilmer  in  which  his  heart  was 
so  deeply  engaged.  Of  a  truth,  Mr.  Holliday*s 
success  in  putting  himself  within  Tarkington*s 
dashing  checked  kuppenheimers  is  a  fine 
achievement  of  projected  psychology.  He 
knows  Tarkington  so  well  that  if  the  latter 
were  unhappily  deleted  by  some  "wilful  convul- 
sion of  brute  nature"  I  think  it  undoubtable 
that  his  biographer  could  reconstruct  a  very 
plausible  automaton,  and  would  know  just  what 
ingredients  to  blend.  A  dash  of  Miss  Austen, 
Joseph  Conrad,  Henry  James  and  Daudet; 
flavored  perhaps  with  coal  smoke  from  Indian- 
apolis, spindrift  from  the  Maine  coast  and  a 
few  twanging  chords  from  the  Princeton  Glee 
Club. 

Fourth  Memo — Mr.  HoUiday  is  critic  as  well 
.as  essayist. 


[164] 


"Owd  Bob" 

Chapter  VI 

(aUR  HERO  FINDS  A  STEADY  JOb) 

It  was  the  summer  of  1917  when  Owd  Bob 
came  back  to  New  York.  Just  at  that  juncture 
I  happened  to  hear  that  a  certain  publisher 
needed  an  editorial  man,  and  when  Bob  and  I 
were  at  Browne's  discussing  the  fate  of  "Walk- 
ing-Stick Papers'*  over  a  jug  of  shandygaff,  I 
told  him  this  news.  He  hurried  to  the  office 
in  question  through  a  drenching  rain-gust,  and 
has  been  there  ever  since.  The  publisher  per- 
formed an  act  of  perspicuity  rare  indeed.  He 
not  only  accepted  the  manuscript,  but  its  au- 
thor as  well. 

So  that  is  the  story  of  "Walking-Stick  Pa- 
pers," and  it  does  not  cause  me  to  droop  if  you 
say  I  talk  of  matters  of  not  such  great  moment. 
What  a  joy  it  would  have  been  if  some  friend 
had  jotted  down  memoranda  of  this  sort  con- 
cerning some  of  Elia's  doings.  The  book  is 
a  garner  of  some  of  the  most  racy,  vigorous  and 
genuinely  flavored  essays  that  this  country  has 
produced  for  some  time.  Dear  to  me,  every 
one  of  them,  as  clean-cut  blazes  by  a  sincere 
workman  along  a  trail  full  of  perplexity  and 
struggle,  as  Grub  Street  always  will  be  for  the 
man  who  dips  an  honest  pen  that  will  not  stoop 

[165] 


Mince  Pie 

to  conquer.  And  if  you  should  require  an  ac- 
curate portrait  of  their  author  I  cannot  do 
better  than  quote  what  Grote  said  of  Socrates: 

Nothing  could  be  more  public,  perpetual,  and  in- 
discriminate   as    to    persons    than    his    conversation. 
But  as  it  was  engaging,  curious,  and  instructive  to 
hear,  certain  persons  made  it  their  habit  to  attend  . 
him  as  companions  and  listeners. 

Owd  Bob  has  long  been  the  object  of  ex- 
treme attachment  and  high  spirits  among  his 
intimates.  The  earlier  books  have  been  fol- 
lowed by  "Broome  Street  Straws"  and  "Peeps 
at  People/*  vividly  personal  collections  that 
will  arouse  immediate  affection  and  amusement 
among  his  readers.  And  of  these  books  will  be 
said  (once  more  in  Grote's  words  about  Soc- 
rates) : 

Not  only  his  conversation  reached  the  minds  of  a 
much  wider  circle,  but  he  became  more  abundantly 
known  as  a  person. 

Let  us  add,  then,  our  final  memorandum: 
Fifth   Memo — These   essays   are  the  sort  of 
thing  you  cannot  afford  to  miss.     In  them  you 
sit  down  to  warm  your  wits  at  the  glow  of  a 
droll,  delightful,  unique  mind. 

So  much  (at  the  moment)  for  Bob  HoUiday. 
[166] 


THE  APPLE  THAT  NO  ONE  ATE 


THE  other  evening  we  went  to  dinner  with 
a  gentleman  whom  it  pleases   our   fancy 
to  call  the  Caliph. 

Now  a  Caliph,  according  to  our  notion,  is 
a  Haroun-al-Raschid  kind  of  person;  one  who 
governs  a  large  empire  of  hearts  with  a  genial 
and  whimsical  sway;  circulating  secretly  among 
his  fellow-men,  doing  kindnesses  often  not  even 
suspected  by  their  beneficiaries.  He  is  the  sort 
of  person  of  whom  the  trained  observer  may 
think,  when  he  hears  an  unexpected  kindness- 
grenade  exploding  somewhere  down  the  line, 
"I'll  bet  that  came  from  the  Caliph's  dugout!" 
A  Caliph's  heart  is  not  surrounded  by  barbed 

[167] 


Mince  Pie 

wire  entanglements  or  a  strip  of  No  Man's 
Land.  Also,  and  rightly,  he  is  stern  to  male- 
factors and  fakers  of  all  sorts. 

It  would  have  been  sad  if  any  one  so  un- 
Caliphlike  as  William  HohenzoUern  had  got  his 
eisenbahn  through  to  Bagdad,  the  city  sacred 
to  the  memory  of  a  genial  despot  who  spent 
his  cabarabian  nights  in  an  excellent  fashion. 
That,  however,  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
story. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Caliph  are  people  so  delightful 
that  they  leave  in  one's  mind  a  warm  afterglow 
of  benevolent  sociability.  They  have  an  infinite 
interest  and  curiosity  in  the  hubbub  of  human 
moods  and  crotchets  that  surrounds  us  all. 
And  when  one  leaves  their  doorsill  one  has  a 
genial  momentum  of  the  spirit  that  carries  one 
on  rapidly  and  cheerfully.  One  has  an  irre- 
sistible impulse  to  give  something  away,  to 
stroke  the  noses  of  horses,  to  write  a  kind  letter 
to  the  fuel  administrator  or  do  almost  anything 
gentle  and  gratuitous.  The  Caliphs  of  the 
world  don't  know  it,  but  that  is  the  effect  they 
produce  on  their  subjects. 

As  we  left,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Caliph  pressed 
upon  us  an  apple.  One  of  those  gorgeous  ap- 
ples that  seem  to  grow  wrapped  up  in  tissue 
paper,  and  are  displayed  behind  plate  glass 
windows.     A  huge  apple,  tinted  with  gold  and 

[168] 


The  Apple  That  No  One  Ate 

crimson  and  pale  yellow  shading  off  to  pink. 
The  kind  of  apple  whose  colors  are  overlaid 
with  a  curious  mist  until  you  polish  it  on  your 
coat,  when  it  gleams  like  a  decanter  of  claret. 
An  apple  so  large  and  weighty  that  if  it  had 
dropped  on  Sir  Isaac  Newton  it  would  have 
fractured  his  skull.  The  kind  of  apple  that 
would  have  made  the  garden  of  Eden  safe  for 
democracy,  because  it  is  so  beautiful  no  one 
would  have  thought  of  eating  it. 

That  was  the  kind  of  apple  the  Caliph  gave 
us. 

It  was  a  cold  night,  and  we  walked  down 
Chestnut  street  dangling  that  apple,  rubbing 
it  on  our  sleeve,  throwing  it  up  and  down  and 
catching  it  again.  We  stopped  at  a  cigar  store 
to  buy  some  pipe  tobacco.  Still  running  on 
Caliph,  by  which  we  mean  still  beguiled  by  his 
geniality,  we  fell  into  talk  with  the  tobacconist. 
"That's  a  fine  apple  you  have  there,"  said  he. 
For  an  instant  we  thought  of  giving  it  to  him, 
but  then  we  reflected  that  a  man  whose  days 
are  spent  surrounded  by  rich  cigars  and  smok- 
ables  is  dangerously  felicitous  already,  and  a 
sudden  joy  might  blast  his  blood  vessels. 

The  shining  of  the  street  lamps  was  reflected 
on  the  polished  skin  of  our  fruit  as  we  went 
our  way.  As  we  held  it  in  our  arms  it  glowed 
like   a   huge  ruby.     We  passed   a   blind  man 

[169] 


Mince  Pie 

selling  pencils,  and  thought  of  giving  it  to 
him.  Then  we  reflected  that  a  blind  man 
would  lose  half  the  pleasure  of  the  adventure 
because  he  couldn't  see  the  colors.  We  bought 
a  pencil  instead.  Still  running  on  Caliph,  you 
see. 

In  our  excitement  we  did  what  we  always  do 
in  moments  of  stress — went  into  a  restaurant 
and  ordered  a  piece  of  hot  mince  pie.  Then 
we  remembered  that  we  had  just  dined.  Never 
mind,  we  sat  there  and  contemplated  the  apple 
as  it  lay  ruddily  on  the  white  porcelain  table- 
top.  Should  we  give  it  to  the  waitress?  No, 
because  apples  were  a  commonplace  to  her. 
The  window  of  the  restaurant  held  a  great  pyra- 
mid of  beauties.  To  her,  an  apple  was  merely 
something  to  be  eaten,  instead  of  the  symbol 
of  a  grand  escapade.  Instead,  we  gave  her  a 
little  medallion  of  a  buffalo  that  happened  to 
be  in  our  pocket. 

Already  the  best  possible  destination  for  that 
apple  had  come  to  our  mind.  Hastening  zeal- 
ously up  a  long  flight  of  stairs  in  a  certain 
large  building  we  went  to  a  corner  where  sits 
a  friend  of  ours,  a  night  watchman.  Under 
a  drop  light  he  sits  through  long  and  tedious 
hours,  beguiling  his  vigil  with  a  book.  He 
is  a  great  reader.  He  eats  books  alive.  Lately 
he  has  become  much  absorbed  in  Saint  Francis 
[170] 


The  Apple  That  No  One  Ate 

of  Assisi,  and  was  deep  in  the  "Little  Flowers** 
when  we  found  him. 

*'We've  brought  you  something,"  we  said,  and 
held  the  apple  where  the  electric  light  brought 
out  all  its  brilliance. 

He  was  delighted  and  his  gentle  elderly  face 
shone  with  awe  at  the  amazing  vividness  of  the 
fruit. 

"I  tell  you  what  1*11  do/*  he  said.  "That 
apple's  much  too  fine  for  me.  I'll  take  it  home 
to  the  wife.** 

Of  course  his  wife  will  say  the  same  thing. 
She  will  be  embarrassed  by  the  surpassing 
splendor  of  that  apple  and  will  give  it  to  some 
friend  of  hers  whom  she  thinks  more  worthy 
than  herself.  And  that  friend  will  give  it 
to  some  one  else,  and  so  it  will  go  rolling  on 
down  the  ages,  passing  from  hand  to  hand,  con- 
ferring delight,  and  never  getting  eaten.  Ulti- 
mately some  one,  trying  to  think  of  a  recipient 
really  worthy  of  its  deliciousness,  will  give  it 
to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Caliph.  And  they,  blessed  in- 
nocents, will  innocently  exclaim,  "Why  we  never 
saw  such  a  magnificent  apple  in  all  our  lives.** 

And  it  will  be  true,  for  by  that  time  the 
apple  will  gleam  with  an  unearthly  brightness, 
enhanced  and  burnished  by  all  the  kind  thoughts 
that  have  surrounded  it  for  so  long. 

As    we    walked    homeward    under    a    frosty 

[171] 


Mince  Pie 

sparkle  of  sky  we  mused  upon  all  the  different 
kinds  of  apples  we  have  encountered.  There 
are  big  glossy  green  apples  and  bright  red 
apples  and  yellow  apples  and  also  that  par- 
ticularly delicious  kind  (whose  name  we  for- 
get) that  is  the  palest  possible  cream  color — al- 
most white.  We  have  seen  apples  of  strange 
shapes,  something  like  a  pear  (sheepnoses,  they 
call  them),  and  the  Maiden  Blush  apples  with 
their  delicate  shading  of  yellow  and  debutante 
pink.  And  what  a  poetry  in  the  names — ^Wine- 
sap,  Pippin,  Northern  Spy,  Baldwin,  Ben 
Davis,  York  Imperial,  Wolf  River,  Jonathan, 
Smokehouse,  Summer  Rambo,  Rome  Beauty, 
Golden  Grimes,  Shenango  Strawberry,  Benoni! 

We  suppose  there  is  hardly  a  man  who  has 
not  an  apple  orchard  tucked  away  in  his  heart 
somewhere.  There  must  be  some  deep  rea- 
son for  the  old  suspicion  that  the  Garden  of 
Eden  was  an  apple  orchard.  Why  is  it  that 
a  man  can  sleep  and  smoke  better  under  an 
apple  tree  than  in  any  other  kind  of  shade? 
Sir  Isaac  Newton  was  a  wise  man,  and  he  chose 
an  apple  tree  to  sit  beneath.  (We  have  often 
wondered,  by  the  way,  how  it  is  that  no  one 
has  ever  named  an  apple  the  Woolsthorpe  after 
Newton's  home  in  Lincolnshire,  where  the  fa- 
mous apple  incident  occurred.) 

An  apple  orchard,  if  it  is  to  fill  the  heart  of 
[172] 


The  Apple  That  No  One  Ate 

man  to  the  full  with  affectionate  satisfaction, 
should  straggle  down  a  hillside  toward  a  lake 
and  a  white  road  where  the  sun  shines  hotly. 
Some  of  its  branches  should  trail  over  an  old, 
lichened  and  weather-stained  stone  wall,  drop- 
ping their  fruit  into  the  highway  for  thirsty 
pedestrians.  There  should  be  a  little  path 
running  athwart  it,  down  toward  the  lake  and 
the  old  flat-bottomed  boat,  whose  bilge  is  scat- 
tered with  the  black  and  shriveled  remains  of 
angleworms  used  for  bait.  In  warm  August 
afternoons  the  sweet  savor  of  ripening  drifts 
warmly  on  the  air,  and  there  rises  the  drowsy 
hum  of  wasps  exploring  the  windfalls  that  are 
already  rotting  on  the  grass.  There  you  may 
lie  watching  the  sky  through  the  chinks  of  the 
leaves,  and  imagining  the  cool,  golden  tang  of 
this  autumn's  cider  vats. 

You  see  what  it  is  to  have  Caliphs  in  the 
world. 


[173] 


AS  TO  RUMORS 

MADRID,  Jan.  17. — Nikolai  Lenine  was  among 
the  Russians  who  landed  at  Barcelona  recently,  aC' 
cording  to  newspapers  here. — News  item. 

IT  is  rather  important  to  understand  the  tech- 
nique of  rumors.  The  wise  man  does  not 
scoff  at  them,  for  while  they  are  often  absurd, 
they  are  rarely  baseless.  People  do  not  go  about 
inventing  rumors,  except  for  purposes  of 
hoax;  and  even  a  practical  joke  is  never  (to 
parody  the  proverb)  hoax  et  praeterea  nihil. 
There  is  always  a  reason  for  wanting  to  per- 
petrate the  hoax,  or  a  reason  for  believing  it 
will  be  believed. 

Rumors  are  a  kind  of  exhalation  or  intellec- 
tual perfume  thrown  off  by  the  news  of  the 
day.  Some  events  are  more  aromatic  than 
others;  they  can  be  detected  by  the  trained 
pointer  long  before  they  happen.  When  things 
are  going  on  that  have  a  strong  vibration — what 
foreign  correspondents  love  to  call  a  "repercus- 
sion"— they  cause  a  good  deal  of  mind-quak- 
ing. An  event  getting  ready  to  happen  is  one  of 
the  most  interesting  things  to  watch.  By  a 
[174] 


As  to  Rumors 

sort  of  mental  radiation  it  fills  men's  minds 
with  surmises  and  conjectures.  Curiously 
enough^  due  perhaps  to  the  innate  perversity  of 
man,  most  of  the  rumors  suggest  the  exact  op- 
posite of  what  is  going  to  happen.  Yet  a  ru- 
mor, while  it  may  be  wholly  misleading  as  to 
fact,  is  always  a  proof  that  something  is  going 
to  happen.  For  instance,  last  summer  when 
the  news  was  full  of  repeated  reports  of  Hin- 
denburg's  death,  any  sane  man  could  foresee 
that  what  these  reports  really  meant  was  not 
necessarily  Hindenburg's  death  at  all,  but  Ger- 
many's approaching  military  collapse.  Some 
German  prisoners  had  probably  said  "Hinden- 
burg  ist  kaput,"  meaning  "Hindenburg  is  done 
for,"  i.e.,  "The  great  offensive  has  failed."  This 
was  taken  to  mean  that  he  was  literally  dead. 
In  the  same  way,  while  probably  no  one 
seriously  believes  that  Lenine  is  in  Barcelona, 
the  mere  fact  that  Madrid  thinks  it  possible 
shows  very  plainly  that  something  is  going  on. 
It  shows  either  that  the  Bolshevik  experiment  in 
Petrograd  has  been  such  a  gorgeous  success 
that  Lenine  can  turn  his  attention  to  foreign 
campaigning,  or  that  it  has  been  such  a  gorgeous 
failure  that  he  has  had  to  skip.  It  does  not 
prove,  since  the  rumor  is  "unconfirmed,"  that 
Lenine  has  gone  anywhere  yet;  but  it  certainly 
does  prove  that  he  is   going  somewhere  soon, 

[175] 


Mince  Pk 

even  if  only  to  the  fortress  of  Peter  and  Paul. 
There  may  be  some  very  simple  explanation  of 
the  rumor.  "You  go  to  Barcelona!"  may  be  a 
jocular  Muscovite  catchword,  similar  to  our 
old  saying  about  going  to  Halifax,  and  Trotzky 
may  have  said  it  to  Lenine.  At  any  rate,  it 
shows  that  the  gold  dust  twins  are  not  insep- 
arable. It  shows  that  Bolshevism  in  Russia  is 
either  very  strong  or  very  near  downfall. 

When  we  were  told  not  long  ago  that  Berlin 
was  strangely  gay  for  the  capital  of  a  pros- 
trate nation  and  that  all  the  cafes  were  crowded 
with  dancers  at  night,  many  readers  were 
amazed  and  tried  to  console  their  sense  of  prob- 
ability by  remarking  that  the  Germans  are 
crazy  anyway.  And  yet  this  rumor  of  the 
dancing  mania  was  an  authentic  premonition 
of  the  bloodier  dance  of  death  led  by  the  Spar- 
tacus  group.  If  Berlin  did  dance  it  was  a 
cotillon  of  despair,  caused  by  infinite  war  weari- 
ness, infinite  hunger  to  forget  humiliation  for  a 
few  moments,  and  foreboding  of  troubles  to 
come.  Whether  true  or  not,  no  one  read  the 
news  without  thinking  it  an  ominous  whisper. 

Coming  events  cast  their  rumors  before. 
From  a  careful  study  of  rumors  the  discerning 
may  learn  a  good  deal,  providing  always  that 
they  never  take  them  at  face  value  but  try  to 
read  beneath  the  surface.  People  sometimes 
[176] 


As  to  Rumors 

criticize  the  newspapers  for  printing  rumors, 
but  it  is  an  essential  part  of  their  function  to 
do  so^  provided  they  plainly  mark  them  as  such, 
Shakespeare  speaks  of  rumors  as  "stuffing  the 
ears  of  men  with  false  reports/'  yet  if  so  this  is 
not  the  fault  of  the  rumor  itself,  but  of  the 
too  credible  listener.  The  prosperity  of  a  ru- 
mor is  in  the  ear  that  hears  it.  The  sagacious 
listener  will  take  the  trouble  to  sift  and  win- 
now his  rumors,  set  them  in  perspective  with 
what  he  knows  of  the  facts  and  from  them  he 
will  then  deduce  exceedingly  valuable  considera- 
tions. Rumor  is  the  living  atmosphere  of  men*s 
minds,  the  most  fascinating  and  significant 
problem  with  which  we  have  to  deal.  The  Fact, 
the  Truth,  may  shine  like  the  sun,  but  after  all 
it  is  the  clouds  that  make  the  sunset  beautiful. 
Keep  your  eye  on  the  rumors,  for  a  sufficient 
number  of  rumors  can  compel  an  event  to  hap- 
pen, even  against  its  will. 

No  one  can  set  down  any  hard  and  fast  rules 
for  reading  the  rumors.  The  process  is  partly 
instinctivQ  and  partly  the  result  of  trained  ob- 
servation. It  is  as  complicated  as  the  calcula- 
tion by  which  a  woman  tells  time  by  her  watch 
which  she  knows  to  be  wrong — she  adds  seven- 
teen minutes,  subtracts  three,  divides  by  two 
and  then  looks  at  the  church  steeple.  It  is  as 
exhilarating  as  trying  to  deduce  what  there  is 

[177] 


Mince  Pie 

going  to  be  for  supper  by  the  pervasive  fra- 
grance of  onions  in  the  front  hall.  And  some- 
times a  very  small  event,  like  a  very  small 
onion,  can  cast  its  rumors  a  long  way.  Des- 
tiny is  unlike  the  hen  in  that  she  cackles  before 
she  lays  the  egg. 

The  first  rule  to  observe  about  rumors  is  that 
they  are  often  exactly  opposite  in  tendency  to 
the  coming  fact.  For  instance,  the  rumors  of 
secrecy  at  the  Peace  Conference  were  the  one 
thing  necessary  to  guarantee  complete  publicity. 
Just  before  any  important  event  occurs  it  seems 
to  discharge  both  positive  and  negative  currents, 
just  as  a  magnet  is  polarized  by  an  electric  coil. 
Some  people  by  mental  habit  catch  the  negative 
vibrations,  others  the  positive.  Every  one  can 
remember  the  military  critics  last  March  who 
were  so  certain  that  there  would  be  no  German 
offensive.  Their  very  certainty  was  to  many 
others  a  proof  that  the  offensive  was  likely. 
They  were  full  of  the  negative  vibrations. 

An  interesting  case  of  positive  vibrations  was 
the  repeated  rumor  of  the  Kaiser*s  abdication. 
The  fact  that  those  rumors  were  premature  was 
insignificant  compared  with  the  fact  that  they 
were  current  at  all.  The  fact  that  there  were 
such  rumors  showed  that  it  was  only  a  matter 
of  time. 

It  is  entertaining,  if  disconcerting,  to  watch 

[178] 


As  to  Rumors 

a  rumor  on  its  travels.  A  classic  example  of 
this  during  the  recent  war  is  exhibited  by  the 
following  clippings  which  were  collected,  I  be- 
lieve, by  Norman  Hapgood: 

From  the  Koelnische-Zeitung : 

*'When  the  fall  of  Antwerp  became  known; 
the  church  bells  were  rung."  (Meaning  in  Ger- 
many.) 


From  the  Paris  Matin: 

"According  to  the  Koelnische-Zeitung,  the 
clergy  of  Antwerp  were  compelled  to  ring  the 
church  bells  when  the  fortress  was  taken.** 

From  the  London  Times: 

"According  to  what  the  Matin  has  heard  from 
Cologne,  the  Belgian  priests,  who  refused  to 
ring  the  church  bells  when  Antwerp  was  taken, 
have  been  driven  away  from  their  places.** 

From  the  Corriere  Delia  Sera,  of  Milan: 

"According  to  what  the  Times  has  heard 
from  Cologne,  via  Paris,  the  unfortunate  Bel- 

[n9] 


Mince  Pie 

gian  priests,  who  refused  to  ring  the  church 
bells  when  Antwerp  was  taken,  have  been  sen- 
tenced to  hard  labor." 

From  the  Matin  again: 

"According  to  information  received  by  the 
Carrier e  Delia  Sera,  from  Cologne,  via  London, 
it  is  confirmed  that  the  barbaric  conquerors  of 
Antwerp  punished  the  unfortunate  Belgian 
priests  for  their  heroic  refusal  to  ring  the  church 
bells  by  hanging  them  as  living  clappers  to  the 
bells  with  their  heads  down." 

Be  hospitable  to  rumors,  for  however  gro- 
tesque they  are,  they  always  hav£  some  reason 
for  existence.  The  Sixth  Sense  is  the  sense  oi 
news,  the  sense  that  something  is  going  to  hap- 
pen. And  just  as  every  orchestra  utters  queer 
and  discordant  sounds  while  it  is  tuning  up  its 
instruments,  so  does  the  great  orchestra  of  Hu- 
man Events  (in  other  words,  The  News)  offer 
shrill  and  perhaps  misleading  notes  before  the 
conductor  waves  his  baton  and  leads  off  the  con- 
certed crash  of  Truth.  Keep  your  senses  alert 
to  examine  the  odd  scraps  of  hearsay  that  you 
will  often  see  in  the  news,  for  it  is  in  just  those 
eavesdroppings  at  the  heart  of  humanity  that 
the  press  often  fulfills  its  highest  function. 


[180] 


OUR  MOTHERS 


WHEN  one  becomes  a  father,  then  first  one 
becomes  a  son.  Standing  by  the  crib  of 
one's  own  baby,  with  that  world-old  pang  of 
compassion  and  protectiveness  toward  this  so 
little  creature  that  has  all  its  course  to  run,  the 
heart  flies  back  in  yearning  and  gratitude  to 
those  who  felt  just  so  toward  one's  self.  Then 
for  the  first  time  one  understands  the  homely 
succession  of  sacrifices  and  pains  by  which  life 
is  transmitted  and  fostered  down  the  stumbling 
generations  of  men. 

Every  man  is  privileged  to  believe  all  his  life 
that  his  own  mother  is  the  best  and  dearest  that 
a  child  ever  had.  By  some  strange  racial  in- 
stinct of  taciturnity  and  repression  most  of  us 
lack  utterance  to  say  our  thoughts  in  this  close 

[181] 


Mince  Pie 

matter.  A  man's  mother  is  so  tissued  and  woven 
into  his  life  and  brain  that  he  can  no  more 
describe  her  than  describe  the  air  and  sunlight 
that  bless  his  days.  It  is  only  when  some  Bar- 
rie  comes  along  that  he  can  say  for  all  of  us 
what  fills  the  eye  with  instant  tears  of  gentle- 
ness. Is  there  a  mother,  is  there  a  son,  who  has 
not  read  Barrie's  "Margaret  Ogilvy?"  Turn  to 
that  first  chapter,  "How  My  Mother  Got  Her 
Soft  Face,'*  and  draw  aside  the  veils  that  years 
and  perplexity  weave  over  the  inner  sanctuaries 
of  our  hearts. 

Our  mothers  understand  us  so  well!  Speech 
and  companionship  with  them  are  so  easy,  so  un- 
obstructed by  the  thousand  teasing  barriers  that 
bar  soul  from  eager  soul!  To  walk  and  talk 
with  them  is  like  slipping  on  an  old  coat.  To 
hear  their  voices  is  like  the  shake  of  music  in  a 
sober  evening  hush. 

There  is  a  harmony  and  beauty  in  the  life  of 
mother  and  son  that  brims  the  mind's  cup  of  sat- 
isfaction. So  well  we  remember  when  she  was 
all  in  all;  strength,  tenderness,  law  and  life 
itself.  Her  arms  were  the  world :  her  soft  cheek 
our  sun  and  stars.  And  now  it  is  we  who  are 
strong  and  self-sufficing;  it  is  she  who  leans 
on  us.  Is  there  anything  so  precious,  so  com- 
plete, so  that  return  of  life's  pendulum? 

And  it  is  as  grandmothers  that  our  mothers 
[182] 


Our  Mothers 

come  into  the  fullness  of  their  grace.  When  a 
man*s  mother  holds  his  child  in  her  gladdened 
arms  he  is  aware  (with  some  instinctive  sense 
of  propriety)  of  the  roundness  of  life's  cycle; 
of  the  mystic  harmony  of  life's  ways.  There 
speaks  humanity  in  its  chord  of  three  notes:  its 
little  capture  of  completeness  and  joy,  sounding 
for  a  moment  against  the  silent  flux  of  time. 
Then  the  perfect  span  is  shredded  away  and  is 
but  a  holy  memory. 

The  world,  as  we  tread  its  puzzling  paths, 
shows  many  profiles  and  glimpses  of  wonder 
and  loveliness;  many  shapes  and  symbols  to 
entrance  and  astound.  Yet  it  will  offer  us  noth- 
ing more  beautiful  than  our  mother's  face;  no 
memory  more  dear  than  her  encircling  tender- 
ness. The  mountain  tops  of  her  love  rise  as 
high  in  ether  as  any  sun-stained  alp.  Lakes 
are  no  deeper  and  no  purer  blue  than  her  bot- 
tomless charity.  We  need  not  fare  further  than 
her  immortal  eyes  to  know  that  life  is  good. 

How  strangely  fragmentary  our  memories  of 
her  are,  and  yet  (when  we  piece  them  together) 
how  they  erect  a  comfortable  background  for  all 
we  are  and  dream.  She  built  the  earth  about 
us  and  arched  us  over  with  sky.  She  created 
our  world,  taught  us  to  dwell  therein.  The  pas- 
sion of  her  love  compelled  the  rude  laws  of  life 
to  stand  back  while  we  were  soft  and  helpless, 

[183] 


Mince  Pie 

She  defied  gravity  that  we  might  not  fall.  She 
set  aside  hunger,  sleep  and  fear  that  we  might 
have  plenty.  She  tamed  her  own  spirit  and 
crushed  her  own  weakness  that  we  might  be 
strong.  And  when  we  passed  down  the  laugh- 
ing street  of  childhood  and  turned  that  corner 
that  all  must  pass,  it  was  her  hand  that  waved 
good-bye.  Then,  smothering  the  ache,  with 
one  look  into  the  secret  corner  where  the  old 
keepsakes  lie  hid,  she  set  about  waiting  the 
day  when  the  long-lost  baby  would  come  back 
anew.  The  grandchild — is  he  not  her  own  boy 
returned  to  her  arms? 

Who  can  lean  over  a  crib  at  night,  marveling 
upon  that  infinite  innocence  and  candor  swathed 
in  the  silk  cocoon  of  childish  sleep,  without 
guessing  the  throb  of  fierce  gentleness  that  runs 
in  maternal  blood?  The  earth  is  none  too  rich 
in  compassion  these  days:  let  us  be  grateful  to 
the  mothers  for  what  remains.  It  was  not  they 
who  filled  the  world  with  spies  and  quakings. 
It  was  not  a  cabal  of  mothers  that  met  to  de- 
cree blood  and  anguish  for  the  races  of  men. 
They  know  that  life  is  built  at  too  dear  a  price 
to  be  so  lathered  in  corruption  and  woe.  Those 
who  create  life,  who  know  its  humility,  its  ten- 
der fabric  and  its  infinite  price,  who  have  cher- 
ished and  warmed  and  fed  it,  do  not  lightly 
cast  it  into  the  pit. 
[184] 


Our  Mothers 

Mothers  are  great  in  the  eyes  of  their  sons 
because  they  are  knit  in  our  minds  with  all  the 
littlenesses  of  life^  the  unspeakably  dear  trifles 
and  odds  of  existence.  The  other  day  I  found 
in  my  desk  a  little  strip  of  tape  on  which  my 
name  was  marked  a  dozen  times  in  drawing  ink, 
in  my  mother's  familiar  script.  My  mind  ran 
back  to  the  time  when  that  little  band  of  humble 
linen  was  a  kind  of  passport  into  manhood.  It 
was  when  I  went  away  from  home  and  she  could 
no  longer  mark  my  garments  with  my  name, 
for  the  confusion  of  rapacious  laundries.  I  was 
to  cut  off  the  autographed  sections  of  this  tape 
and  sew  them  on  such  new  vestments  as  came 
my  way.  Of  course  I  did  not  do  so;  what  boy 
would  be  faithful  to  so  feminine  a  trust?  But 
now  the  little  tape,  soiled  by  a  dozen  years  of 
wandering,  lies  in  my  desk  drawer  as  a  symbol 
and  souvenir  of  that  endless  forethought  and 
loving  kindness. 

They  love  us  not  wisely  but  too  well,  it  is 
sometimes  said.  Ah,  in  a  world  where  so  many 
love  us  not  well  but  too  wisely,  how  tremulously 
our  hearts  turn  back  to  bathe  in  that  running 
river  of  their  love  and  ceaseless  charm! 


[183] 


GREETING  TO  AMERICAN  ANGLERS 

From  Master  Izaah  Walton 

\ 

MY  Good  Friends — As  I  have  said  afore- 
time, sitting  by  a  river's  side  is  the  quiet- 
est and  fittest  place  for  contemplation,  and  be- 
ing out  and  along  the  bank  of  Styx  with  my 
tackle  this  sweet  April  morning,  it  came  into  my 
humor  to  send  a  word  of  greeting  to  you  Amer- 
ican anglers.  Some  of  your  fellows,  who  have 
come  by  this  way  these  past  years,  tell  me  no- 
table tales  of  the  sport  that  may  be  had  in  your 
bright  streams,  whereof  the  name  of  Pocono 
lingers  in  my  memory.  Sad  it  is  to  me  to  recall 
that  when  writing  my  little  book  on  the  recrea- 
tion of  a  contemplative  man  I  had  made  no 
mention  of  your  rivers  as  delightsome  places 
where  our  noble  art  might  be  carried  to  a  brave 
perfection,  but  indeed  in  that  day  when  I  wrote 
— more  years  ago  than  I  like  to  think  on — your 
far  country  was  esteemed  a  wild  and  wanton 
land.  Some  worthy  Pennsylvania  anglers  with 
whom  I  have  fished  this  water  of  Styx  have  even 
told  me  of  thirty  and  forty-inch  trouts  they  have 
[186] 


Greeting  to  American  Anglers 

brought  to  basket  in  that  same  Pocono  stream, 
from  the  which  fables  I  know  that  the  manners 
of  our  ancient  sport  have  altered  not  a  whit. 
I  myself  could  tell  you  of  a  notable  catch  I  had 
the  other  mornings  when  I  took  some  half  dozen 
brace  of  trouts  before  breakfast,  not  one  less 
than  twenty-two  inches,  with  bellies  as  yellow 
as  marigold  and  as  white  as  a  lily  in  parts. 
That  I  account  quite  excellent  taking  for  these 


times,  when  this  stream  hath  been  so  roiled 
and  troubled  by  the  passage  of  Master  Charon's 
barges,  he  having  been  so  pressed  with  traffic 
that  he  hath  discarded  his  ancient  vessel  as  in- 
commodious and  hasteneth  to  and  fro  with  a  fleet 
of  ferryboats. 

My  Good  Friends,  I  wish  you  all  the  comely 
sport  that  may  be  found  along  those  crystal 
rivers  whereof  your  fellows  have  told  me,  and 
a  good  honest  alehouse  wherein  to  take  your 
civil  cup  of  barley  wine  when  there  ariseth  too 
violent  a  shower  of  rain.     I  have  ever  believed 

[187] 


Mince  Pie 

that  a  pipe  of  tobacco  sweeteneth  sport,  and  I 
was  never  above  hiding  a  bottle  of  somewhat  in 
the  hollow  root  of  a  sycamore  against  chilly 
seizures.  But  come,  what  is  this  I  hear  that  you 
honest  anglers  shall  no  longer  pledge  fortune  in 
a  cup  of  mild  beverage?  Meseemeth  this  is  an 
odd  thing  and  contrary  to  our  tradition.  I  look 
for  some  explanation  of  the  matter.  Mayhap 
I  have  been  misled  by  some  waggishness.  In 
my  days  along  my  beloved  little  river  Dove, 
where  my  friend  Mr.  Cotton  erected  his  fishing 
house,  we  were  wont  to  take  our  pleasure  on  the 
bowling  green  of  an  evening,  with  a  cup  of  ale 
handy.  And  our  sheets  used  to  smell  passing 
sweet  of  lavender,  which  is  a  pleasant  fra- 
grance, indeed. 

One  matter  lies  somewhat  heavy  on  my  heart 
and  damps  my  mirth,  that  in  my  little  book 
I  said  of  our  noble  fish  the  trout  that  his  name 
was  of  a  German  offspring.  I  am  happy  to  con- 
fess to  you  that  I  was  at  fault,  for  my  good 
friend  Master  Charon  (who  doth  sometimes 
lighten  his  labors  with  a  little  casting  and 
trolling  from  the  poop  of  his  vessel)  hath  ex- 
plained to  me  that  the  name  trout  deriveth  from 
the  antique  Latin  word  tructa,  signifying  a 
gnawer.  This  is  a  gladsome  thing  for  me  to 
know,  and  moreover  I  am  bounden  to  tell  you 
that  the  house  committee  of  our  little  angling 
[188] 


Greeting  to  American  Anglers 

club  along  Styx  hath  blackballed  all  German 
members  henceforward.  These  riparian  pleas- 
ures are  justly  to  be  reserved  for  gentles  of  the 
true  sportsman  bloody  and  not  such  as  have  de- 
filed the  fair  rivers  of  France. 

And  so,  good  friends,  my  love  and  blessing 
upon  all  such  as  love  quietness  and  go  angling. 

IzAAK  Walton. 


'[189] 


MRS.  IZAAK  WALTON  WRITES  A  LET- 
TER   TO    HER    MOTHER 

Chancery  Lane,  London, 

April  28,  1639. 

MY  Dearest  Mother: 
Matters  indeed  pass  from  badd  to  worse, 
and  I  fear  mee  that  with  Izaak  spending  all 
hys  tyme  angling  along  riversydes  and  neglect- 
ing the  millinery  shoppe  (wych  is  our  onlie 
supporte,  for  can  bodye  and  soule  be  keppt  in 
one  by  a  few  paltrie  brace  of  trouts  a  weeke?) 
wee  shall  soone  come  to  a  sorrye  ende.  How 
many  tymes,  deare  Mother,  have  I  bewailed  my 
follye  in  wedding  this  creature  who  seemeth  to 
mee  more  a  fysh  than  a  man,  not  mearly  by 
reason  of  hys  madnesse  for  the  gracelesse  prac- 
tice of  water-dabbling,  but  eke  for  hys  pas- 
sion for  swimming  in  barley  wine,  ale,  malmsey 
and  other  infuriatyng  liquours.  What  manner 
of  companye  doth  this  dotard  keepe  on  his  fysh- 
ing  pastimes,  God  wot !  Lo  he  is  wonte  to  come 
home  at  some  grievous  houre  of  ye  nyghte, 
bearing  but  a  smalle  catche  but  plentyful  aroma 
[190] 


Mrs.  Izaak  Walton  Writes  a  Letter 

of  drinke,  and  ofttimes  alsoe  hys  rybalde 
freinds  do  accompany  hym.  Nothing  will  serve 
but  they  must  arouse  our  kytchen-maide  and 
have  some  paltry  chubb  or  gudgeon  fryed  in 
greese,  filling  ye  house  wyth  nauseous  odoures, 
and  wyth  their  ill  prattle  of  fyshing  tackle,  not 
to  say  the  comely  milke-maides  they  have  seen 
along  some  wanton  meadowside,  soe  that  I  am 
moste   distraught.      You   knowe,   my   deare,   I 


never  colde  abyde  fyssche  being  colde  clammy 
cretures,  and  loe  onlye  last  nyghte  this  Monster 
dyd  come  to  my  beddside  where  I  laye  asleep- 
yng  and  wake  me  fromm  a  sweet  drowse  by 
dangling  a  string  of  loathsome  queasy  trouts, 
still  dryppinge,  against  my  nose.  Lo,  says  he, 
are  these  not  beuties?  And  his  reek  of  barley 
wine  did  fille  the  chamber.  Worste  of  alle, 
deare  Mother,  this  all-advised  wretche  doth 
spend  alle  his  vacant  houres  in  compiling  a 
booke  on  the  art  (as  he  calleth  it)  of  angling, 
surely  a  trifling  petty  wanton  taske  that  will 

[191] 


Mince  Pie 

make  hym  the  laughing-stocke  of  all  sober  men. 
God  forbidd  that  oure  littel  son  sholde  be 
brought  uppe  in  this  nastye  squanderinge  of 
tyme,  wych  doth  breede  nought  (meseems)  but 
ale-bibbing  and  ye  disregarde  of  truth.  Oure 
house,  wych  is  but  small  as  thou  knowest,  is  all 
cluttered  wyth  his  slimye  tackle,  and  loe  but 
yesterdaye  I  loste  a  customer  fromm  ye  mil- 
linery shoppe,  shee  averring  (and  I  trow  ryght- 
ly)  that  ye  shoppe  dyd  stinke  of  fysshe.  Ande 
soe  if  thys  thyng  do  continue  longer  I  shall 
ripp  uppe  and  leave,  for  I  thoght  to  wed  a  man 
and  not  a  paddler  of  dytches.  O  howe  I  longe 
for  those  happy  dayes  with  thee,  before  I  ever 
knew  such  a  thyng  as  a  fysshe  existed!  Sad 
too  it  is  that  he  doth  justifye  his  vain  idle  wan- 
ton pasttyme  by  misquoting  scriptures.  Saint 
Peter,  and  soe  on.  Three  kytchen  maides  have 
lefte  us  latelye  for  barbyng  themselves  upon 
hydden  hookes  that  doe  scatter  our  shelves  and 
drawers. 

Thy  persecuted  daughter, 

Anne  Walton. 


[192]' 


TRUTH 

OUR  mind  is  dreadfully  active  sometimes, 
and  the  other  day  we  began  to  speculate 
on  Truth. 

Our  friends  are  still  avoiding  us. 

Every  man  knows  what  Truth  is_,  but  it  is 
impossible  to  utter  it.  The  face  of  your  lis- 
tener, his  eyes  mirthful  or  sorry,  his  eager 
expectance  or  his  churlish  disdain  insensibly  dis- 
tort your  message.  You  find  yourself  saying 
what  you  know  he  expects  you  to  say,  or  (more 
often)  what  he  expects  you  not  to  say.  You 
may  not  be  aware  of  this,  but  that  is  what  hap- 
pens. In  order  that  the  world  may  go  on  and 
human  beings  thrive,  nature  has  contrived  that 
the  Truth  may  not  often  be  uttered. 

And  how  is  one  to  know  what  is  Truth?  He 
thinks  one  thing  before  lunch;  after  a  stirring 
bout  with  corned  beef  and  onions  the  shining^ 
vision  is  strangely  altered.     Which  is  Truth? 

Truth  can  only  be  attained  by  those  whose 
systems  are  untainted  by  secret  influences,  such 
as  love,  envy,  ambition,  food,  college  education) 
and  moonlight  in  spring. 

[193] 


Mince  Pie 

If  a  man  lived  in  a  desert  for  six  months 
without  food,  drink  or  companionship  he  would 
be  reasonably  free  from  prejudice  and  would  be 
in  a  condition  to  enunciate  great  truths. 

But  even  then  his  vision  of  reality  would  have 
been  warped  by  so  much  sand  and  so  many 
sunsets. 

Even  if  he  survived  and  brought  us  his  Truth 
with  all  the  gravity  and  long  night-gown  of  a 
Hindu  faker,  as  soon  as  any  one  listened  to 
him  his  message  would  no  longer  be  Truth.  The 
complexion  of  his  audience,  the  very  shape  of 
their  noses,  would  subtly  undermine  his  mag- 
nificent aloofness. 

Women  have  learned  the  secret.  Truth  must 
never  be  uttered,  and  never  be  listened  to. 

Truth  is  the  ricochet  of  a  prejudice  bounc- 
ing off  a  fact. 

Truth  is  what  every  man  sees  lurking  at  the 
bottom  of  his  own  soul,  like  the  oyster  shell 
housewives  put  in  the  kitchen  kettle  to  collect 
the  lime  from  the  water.  By  and  by  each 
man's  iridescent  oyster  shell  of  Truth  becomes 
coated  with  the  lime  of  prejudice  and  hearsay. 

All  the  above  is  probably  untrue. 


[194] 


THE  TRAGEDY  OF  WASHINGTON 
SQUARE 

ONE  of  our  favorite  amusements  at  lunch- 
time  is  to  walk  down  to  Henry  Rosa's  pas- 
try shop,  and  huy  a  slab  of  cinnamon  bun. 
Then  we  walk  roimd  Washington  Square,  mus- 
ing, and  gradually  walking  round  and  engulf- 
ing the  cinnamon  bun  at  the  same  time.  It  is 
surprising  what  a  large  circumference  those 
buns  of  Henry's  have.  By  the  time  we  have 
gnashed  our  way  through  one  of  those  warm 
and  mystic  phenomena  we  don't  want  to  eat 
again  for  a  month. 

The  real  reason  for  the  cinnamon  bun  is  to 
fortify  us  for  the  contemplation  and  onslaught 
upon  a  tragic  problem  that  Washington  Square 
presents  to  our  pondering  soul. 

Washington  Square  is  a  delightful  place. 
There  are  trees  there,  and  publishing  houses  and 
warm  green  grass  and  a  fire  engine  station. 
There  are  children  playing  about  on  the  broad 
pavements  that  criss-cross  the  sward;  there  is  a 
fine  roof  of  blue  sky,  kept  from  falling  down  by 
the  enormous  building  at  the  north  side  of  the 

[195] 


Mince  Pie 

Square.  But  these  things  present  no  problems. 
To  our  simple  philosophy  a  tree  is  a  vegetable, 
a  child  is  an  animal,  a  building  is  a  mineral, 
and  this  classification  needs  no  further  scrutiny 
or  analysis.  But  there  is  one  thing  in  Wash- 
ington Square  that  embodies  an  intellectual 
problem,  a  grappling  of  the  soul,  a  matter  for 
continual  anguish  and  decision. 

On  the  west  side  of  the  Square  is  the  Swiss 
consulate,  and,  it  is  this  that  weighs  upon  our 
brooding  spirit.  How  many  times  we  have 
paused  before  that  quiet  little  house  and  gazed 
upon  the  little  red  cross,  a  Maltese  Cross,  or  a 
Cross  of  St.  Hieronymus,  or  whatever  the  her- 
aldic term  is,  that  represents  and  symbolizes 
the  diplomatic  and  spiritual  presence  of  the 
Swiss  republic.  We  have  stood  there  and 
thought  about  William  Tell  and  the  Berne  Con- 
vention and  the  St.  Gothard  Tunnel  and  St. 
Bernard  dogs  and  winter  sports  and  alpen- 
stocks and  edelweiss  and  the  Jungfrau  and  all 
the  other  trappings  and  trappists  that  make 
Switzerland  notable.  We  have  mused  upon  the 
Swiss  military  system,  which  is  so  perfect  that 
it  has  never  had  to  be  tested  by  war;  and  we 
have  wondered  what  is  the  name  of  the  Presi- 
dent of  Switzerland  and  how  he  keeps  it  out 
of  the  papers  so  successfully.  One  day  we 
lugged  an  encyclopedia  and  the  Statesman's 
[196] 


The  Tragedy  of  Washington  Square 

Year  Book  out  to  the  Square  with  us  and  sat 
down  on  a  bench  facing  the  consulate  and  read 
up  about  the  Swiss  cabinet  and  the  national 
bank  of  Switzerland  and  her  child  labor  prob- 
lems. Accidentally  we  discovered  the  name  of 
the  Swiss  President,  but  as  he  has  kept  it  so 
dark  we  are  not  going  to  give  away  his  secret. 

Our  dilemma  is  quite  simple.  Where  there 
is  a  consulate  there  must  be  a  consul,  and  it 
seems  to  us  a  dreadful  thing  that  inside  that 
building  there  lurks  a  Swiss  envoy  who  does  not 
know  that  we,  here,  we  who  are  walking  round 
the  Square  with  our  mouth  full  of  Henry  Rosa's 
bun,  once  spent  a  night  in  Switzerland.  We 
want  him  to  know  that;  we  think  he  ought  to 
know  it;  we  think  it  is  part  of  his  diplomatic 
duty  to  know  it.  And  yet  how  can  we  burst 
in  on  him  and  tell  him  that  apparently  irrelevant 
piece  of  information? 

We  have  thought  of  various  ways  of  breaking 
it  to  him,  or  should  we  say  breaking  him  to 
it? 

Should  we  rush  in  and  say  the  Swiss  national 

debt  is  $ ,  or kopecks,  and  then  lead  on 

to  other  topics  such  as  the  comparative  heights 
of  mountain  peaks,  letting  the  consul  gradually 
grasp  the  fact  that  we  have  been  in  Switzer- 
land?    Or  should  we  call  him  up  on  the  tele- 

[197] 


Mince  Pie 

phone  and  make  a  mysterious  appointment  with 
him,  when  we  could  blurt  it  out  brutally? 

We  are  a  modest  and  diflBdent  man,  and  this 
little  problem,  which  would  be  so  trifling  to 
many,  presents  inscrutable  hardships  to  us. 

Another  aspect  of  the  matter  is  this.  We 
think  the  consul  ought  to  know  that  we  spent 
one  night  in  Switzerland  once;  we  think  he 
ought  to  know  what  we  were  doing  that  night; 
but  we  also  think  he  ought  to  know  just  why 
it  was  that  we  spent  only  one  night  in  his 
beautiful  country.  We  don't  want  him  to  think 
we  hurried  away  because  we  were  annoyed  by 
anything,  or  because  the  national  debt  was  so 
many  rupees  or  piasters,  or  because  child  labor 

in  Switzerland  is  .     It  is  the  thought  that 

the  consul  and  all  his  staff  are  in  total  ignorance 
of  our  existence  that  galls  us.  Here  we  are, 
walking  round  and  round  the  Square,  bursting 
with  information  and  enthusiasm  about  Swiss 
republicanism,  and  the  consul  never  heard  of  us. 
How  can  we  summon  up  courage  enough  to  tell 
him  the  truth?  That  is  the  tragedy  of  Wash- 
ington Square. 

It  was  a  dark,  rainy  night  when  we  bicycled 

into  Basel.     We  had  been  riding  all  day  long, 

coming  down  from  the  dark  clefts  of  the  Black 

Forest,   and   we    and   our   knapsack   were   wet 

[198] 


The  Tragedy  of  Washington  Square 

through.  We  had  been  bicycling  for  six  weeks 
with  no  more  luggage  than  a  rucksack  could 
hold.  We  never  saw  such  rain  as  fell  that  day 
we  slithered  and  sloshed  on  the  rugged  slopes 
that  tumble  down  to  the  Rhine  at  Basel.     (The 

annual  rainfall  in  Switzerland  is .)     When 

we  got  to  the  little  hotel  at  Basel  we  sat  in  the 
dining  room  with  water  running  oW  us  in 
trickles,  until  the  head  waiter  glared.  And  so 
all  we  saw  of  Switzerland  was  the  interior  of 
the  tobacconist's,  where  we  tried,  unsuccessful- 
ly, to  get  some  English  baccy.  Then  he  went  to 
bed  while  our  garments  were  dried.  We  stayed 
in  bed  for  ten  hours,  reading  fairy  tales  and 
smoking  and  answering  modestly  through  the 
transom  when  any  one  asked  us  questions. 

The  next  morning  we  overhauled  our  ward- 
robe. We  will  not  particularize,  but  we  decided 
that  one  change,  of  duds,  after  six  weeks*  bi- 
cycling, was  not  enough  of  a  wardrobe  to  face 
the  Jungfrau  and  the  national  debt  and  the 
child-labor  problem,  not  to  speak  of  the 
anonymous  President  and  the  other  sights  that 
matter  (such  as  the  Matterhorn).  Also,  our 
stock  of  tobacco  had  run  out,  and  German  or 
French  tobacco  we  simply  cannot  smoke.  Even 
if  we  could  get  along  on  substitute  fumigants 
the  issue  of  garments  was  imperative.  The 
nearest  place  where  we  could  get  any  clothes  of 

[199J 


Mince  Pie 

the  kind  that  we  are  accustomed  to,  the  kind 
of  clothes  that  are  familiarly  symbolized  by 
three  well-known  initials,  was  London.  And  the 
only  way  we  had  to  get  to  London  was  on  our 
bicycle.  We  thought  we  had  better  get  busy. 
It*s  a  long  bike  ride  from  Basel  to  London.  So 
we  just  went  as  far  as  the  Basel  Cathedral,  so 
as  not  to  seem  too  unappreciative  of  all  the 
treasures  that  Switzerland  had  been  saving  for 
us  for  countless  centuries ;  then  we  got  on  board 
our  patient  steed  and  trundled  off  through  Al- 
sace. 

That  was  in  August,  1912,  and  we  firmly  in- 
tended to  go  back  to  Switzerland  the  next  year 
to  have  another  look  at  the  rainfall  and  the 
rest  of  the  statistics  and  status  quos.  But  the 
opportunity  has  not  come. 

So  that  is  why  we  wander  disconsolately  about 
Washington  Square,  trying  to  make  up  our  mind 
to  unburden  our  bosom  to  the  Swiss  consul  and 
tell  him  the  worst.  But  how  can  one  go  and 
interrupt  a  consul  to  tell  him  that  sort  of  thing? 
Perhaps  he  wouldn't  understand  it  at  all;  he 
would  misunderstand  our  pathetic  little  story 
and  be  angry  that  we  took  up  his  time.  He 
wouldn't  think  that  a  shortage  of  tobacco  and 
clothing  was  a  sufficient  excuse  for  slighting 
William  Tell  and  the  Jungfrau.  He  wouldn't 
appreciate  the  frustrated  emotion  and  longing 
[200] 


The  Tragedy  of  Washington  Square 

with  which  we  watch  the  little  red  cross  at  his 
front  door,  and  think  of  all  it  means  to  us  and 
all  it  might  have  meant. 

We  took  another  turn  aromid  Washington 
Square,  trying  to  embolden  ourself  enough  to  go 
in  and  tell  the  consul  all  this.  And  then  our 
heart  failed  us.  We  decided  to  write  a  piece  for 
the  paper  about  it,  and  if  the  consul  ever  sees  it 
he  will  be  generous  and  understand.  He  will 
know  why,  behind  the  humble  fa9ade  of  his  con- 
sulate on  Washington  Square,  we  see  the  heaven- 
piercing  summits  of  Switzerland  rising  like  a 
dream,  blue  and  silvery  and  tantalizing. 

P.  S.  Since  the  above  we  have  definitely  de- 
cided not  to  go  to  call  on  the  Swiss  consul. 
Suppose  he  were  only  a  vice-consul,  a  Philadel- 
phia Swiss,  who  had  never  been  to  Switzerland 
in  his  life! 


[201] 


IF  MR.  WILSON  WERE  THE  WEATHER 

MAN 

MY  Fellow  Citizens:  It  is  very  delightful 
to  be  here,  if  I  may  be  permitted  to  say 
so,  and  I  consider  it  a  distinguished  privilege  to 
open  the  discussion  as  to  the  probable  weather 
to-morrow  not  only,  but  during  the  days  to  come. 
I  can  easily  conceive  that  many  of  our  forecasts 
will  need  subsequent  reconsideration,  for  if  I 
may  judge  by  my  own  study  of  these  matters, 
the  climate  is  not  susceptible  of  confident  judg- 
ments at  present. 

An  overwhelming  majority  of  the  American 
people  is  in  favor  of  fine  weather.  This  under- 
lying community  of  purpose  warms  my  heart. 
If  we  do  not  guarantee  them  fine  weather,  can- 
not you  see  the  picture  of  what  would  come  to 
pass?  Your  hearts  have  instructed  you  where 
the  rain  falls.  It  falls  upon  senators  and  con- 
gressmen not  only — and  for  that  we  need  not 
feel  so  much  chagrin — it  falls  upon  humble 
homes  everywhere,  upon  plain  men,  and  women, 
and  children.  If  I  were  to  disappoint  the 
united  expectation   of   my   fellow  citizens   for 


If  Mr.  Wilson  Were  the  Weather  Man 

fine  weather  to-morrow  I  would  incur  their  mer- 
ited scorn. 

I  suppose  no  more  delicate  task  is  given  any 
man  than  to  interpret  the  feelings  and  purposes 
of  a  great  climate.  It  is  not  a  task  in  which  any 
man  can  find  much  exhilaration,  and  I  confess  I 
have  been  puzzled  by  some  of  the  criticisms 
leveled  at  my  oflSce.  But  they  do  not  make  any 
impression  on  me,  because  I  know  that  the  sen- 
timent of  the  country  at  large  will  be  more  gen- 
erous. I  call  my  fellow  countrymen  to  witness 
that  at  no  stage  of  the  recent  period  of  low 
barometric  pressure  have  I  judged  the  purposes 
of  the  climate  intemperately.  I  should  be 
ashamed  to  use  the  weak  language  of  vindictive 
protest. 

I  have  tried  once  and  again,  my  fellow  citi- 
zens, to  say  to  you  in  all  frankness  what  seems 
to  be  the  prospect  of  fine  weather.  There  is  a 
compulsion  upon  one  in  my  position  to  exercise 
every  effort  to  see  that  as  little  as  possible  of 
the  hope  of  mankind  is  disappointed.  Yet  this 
is  a  hope  which  cannot,  in  the  very  nature  of 
things,  be  realized  in  its  perfection.  The  ut- 
most that  can  be  done  by  way  of  accommoda- 
tion and  compromise  has  been  performed  with- 
out stint  or  limit.  I  am  sure  it  will  not  be 
necessary  to  remind  you  that  you  cannot  throw 
off  the  habits  of  the  climate  immediately,  any 


Mince  Pie 

more  than  you  can  throw  off  the  habits  of  the 
individual  immediately.  But  however  unprom- 
ising the  immediate  outlook  may  be,  I  am  the 
more  happy  to  offer  my  observations  on  the  state 
of  the  weather  for  to-morrow  because  this  is  not 
a  party  issue.  What  a  delightful  thought  that 
is !  Whatever  the  condition  of  sunshine  or  pre- 
cipitation vouchsafed  to  us,  may  I  not  hope  that 
we  shall  all  meet  it  with  quickened  temper  and 
purpose,  happy  in  the  thought  that  it  is  our 
common  fortune? 

For   to-morrow   there   is   every   prospect   of 
heavy  and  continuous  rain. 


[204] 


SYNTAX  FOR  CYNICS 
A  Grammar  of  the  Feminine  Language 

THE  feminine  language  consists  of  words 
placed  one  after  another  with  extreme 
rapidity,  with  intervals  for  matinees.  The  pur^ 
pose  of  this  language  is  (1)  to  conceal,  and  (2) 
to  induce,  thought.     Very  often,  after  the  use 


of  a  deal  of  language,  a  thought  will  appear  in 
the  speaker's  mind.  This,  while  desirable,  is 
by  no  means  necessary. 

THOUGHT  cannot  be  defined,  but  it  is  in- 
stinctively recognized  even  by  those  unaccus- 
tomed to  it. 

[205] 


Mince  Pie 

PARTS  OF  SPEECH:  There  are  five  parts 
of  feminine  speech — noun,  pronoun,  adjective, 
verb  and  interjection. 

THE  NOUN  is  the  name  of  something  to 
wear,  or  somebody  who  furnishes  something  to 
wear,  or  a  place  where  something  is  to  be  worn. 
E.  g.,  hat,  husband,  opera.  Feminine  nouns  are 
always  singular. 

THE  PRONOUN  is  7. 

ADJECTIVES:  There  are  only  four  femi- 
nine adjectives — adorable,  cute,  sweet,  horrid. 
These  are  all  modified  on  occasion  by  the  adverb 
perfectly. 

THE  VERBS  are  of  two  kinds— active  and 
passive.  Active  verbs  express  action;  passive 
verbs  express  passion.  All  feminine  verbs  are 
irregular  and  imperative. 

INTERJECTIONS:  There  are  two  inter- 
jections— Heavens!  and  Gracious!  The  mascu- 
line language  is  much  richer  in  interjections. 

DECLENSION:  There  are  three  ways  of 
feminine  declining,  (1)  to  say  No;  (2)  to  say 
Yes  and  mean  No;  (3)  to  say  nothing. 

CONJUGATION:  This  is  what  happens  to 
a  verb  in  the  course  of  conversation  or  shop- 
ping. A  verb  begins  the  day  quite  innocently, 
as  the  verb  go  in  the  phrase  to  go  to  town. 
When  it  gets  to  the  city  this  verb  becomes 
looJe,  as,  for  instance,  to  look  at  the  shop  win- 
[W6] 


Syntax  for  Cynics 

dows.  Thereafter  its  descent  is  rapid  into  the 
form  purchase  or  charge.  This  conjugation  is 
often  assisted  by  the  auxiliary  expression  a 
bargain.  About  the  first  of  the  following  month 
the  verb  reappears  in  the  masculine  vocabulary 
in  a  parallel  or  perverted  form^  modified  by  an 
inter  j  ection. 

CONVERSATION  in  the  feminine  language 
consists  of  language  rapidly  vibrating  or  oscil- 
lating between  two  persons.  The  object  of  any 
conversation  is  always  accusative,  e.  g.,  "Mrs, 
Edwards  has  no  taste  in  hats."  Most  conver- 
sations consist  of  an  indeterminate  number  of 
sentences,  but  sometimes  it  is  difficult  to  tell 
where  one  sentence  ends  and  the  next  begins. 
It  is  even  possible  for  two  sentences  to  overlap. 
When  this  occurs  the  conversation  is  known  as 
a  dialogue.  A  sentence  may  be  of  any  length, 
and  is  concluded  only  by  the  physiological  ne- 
cessity of  taking  breath. 

SENTENCES:  A  sentence  may  be  defined 
as  a  group  of  words,  uttered  in  sequence,  but 
without  logical  connection,  to  express  an  opin- 
ion or  an  emotion.  A  number  of  sentences  if 
emitted  without  interruption  becomes  a  con- 
versation. A  conversation  prolonged  over  an 
hour  or  more  becomes  a  gossip.  A  gossip,  when 
shared  by  several  persons,  is  known  as  a  secret. 

[«07] 


Mince  Pie 

A  secret  is  anything  known  by  a  large  and 
constantly  increasing  number  of  persons. 

LETTERS:  The  feminine  language,  when 
committed  to  paper,  with  a  stub  pen  and  back- 
handed chirography,  is  known  as  a  letter.  A 
letter  should,  if  possible,  be  written  on  rose  or 
lemon  colored  paper  of  a  rough  and  flannely 
texture,  with  scalloped  edges  and  initials  em- 
bossed in  gilt.  It  should  be  written  with  great 
rapidity,  containing  not  less  than  ten  exclama- 
tion points  per  page  and  three  underlined  ad- 
jectives per  paragraph.  The  verb  may  be  re- 
served until  the  postscript. 

Generally  speaking,  students  of  the  feminine 
language  are  agreed  that  rules  of  grammar  and 
syntax  are  subject  to  individual  caprice  and 
whim,  and  it  is  very  difficult  to  lay  down  fixed 
canons.  The  extreme  rapidity  with  which  the 
language  is  used  and  the  charm  and  personal 
magnetism  of  its  users  have  disconcerted  even 
the  most  careful  and  scientific  observers.  A 
glossary  of  technical  terms  and  idioms  in  the 
feminine  language  would  be  a  work  of  great 
value  to  the  whole  husband  world,  but  it  is 
doubtful  if  any  such  volume  will  ever  be  pub- 
lished. 


[208] 


THE  TRUTH  AT  LAST 

An  Extract  from  Martha  Washington's 
Diary 

FEB.  22,  1772.  A  grate  Company  of  Guests 
assembled  at  Mt  Vernon  to  celebrate  Gen^ 
Washington's  Birthdaye.  In  the  Morning  the 
Gentlemenn  went  a  Fox  hunting,  but  their  Sport 
was  marred  by  the  Pertinacity  of  some  Motion 


Picture  menu  who  persewd  them  to  take  Fillums 
and  catchd  the  General  falling  oiF  his  Horse  at 
a  Ditch.  In  the  Evening  some  of  the  Companye 
tooke  Occasion  to  rally  the  General  upon  the  old 
Fable  of  the  Cherrye  Tree,  w*^^  hath  ever  been 

[209] 


/^ 


Mince  Pie 

imputed  an  Evidence  of  hys  exceeding  Veracity, 
though  to  saye  sooth  I  never  did  believe  the 
legend  my  self.  "Well/*  sayes  the  General  with 
a  Twinkle,  "it  wolde  not  be  Politick  to  denye  a 
Romance  w^^  is  soe  profitable  to  my  Reputa- 
tion, but  to  be  Candid,  Gentlemenn,  I  have  no 
certain  recollection  of  the  Affaire.  My  Brother 
Lawrence  was  wont  to  say  that  the  Tree  or 
Shrubb  in  question  was  no  Cherrye  but  a  Bitter 
Persimmon;  moreover  he  told  me  that  I  stoutly 
denyed  any  Attacke  upon  it;  but  being  caught 
with  the  Goods  (as  Tully  saith)  I  was  soundly 
Flogged,  and  walked  stiffly  for  three  dayes." 

I  was  glad  to  heare  the  Truth'  in  this  matter 
as  I  have  never  seen  any  Corroboration  of  this 
surpassing  Virtue  in  George's  private  Life. 
The  evening  broke  up  in  some  Disorder  as  Col 
Fairfax  and  others  hadd  Drunk  too  freely  of 
the  Cock's  Taile  as  they  dub  the  new  and  very 
biting  Toddy  introduced  by  the  military.  Wee 
hadd  to  call  a  chirurgeon  to  lett  Blood  for  some 
of  the  Guests  before  they  coulde  be  gott  to 
Bedd,  whither  they  were  conveyed  on  stretchers. 


[«10] 


FIXED  IDEAS 

IT  is  said  that  a  Fixed  Idea  is  the  beginning- 
of  madness. 
Yet  we  are  often  worried  because  we  have 
so  few  Fixed  Ideas.     We  do  not  seem  to  have 
any  really  definite  Theory  about  Life. 


We  find,  on  the  other  hand,  that  a  great  many 
of  those  we  know  have  some  Guiding  Principle 
that  excuses  and  explains  all  their  conduct. 


If  you  have  some  Theory  about  Life,  and  are 
thoroughly  devoted  to  it,  you  may  come  to  a 
bad  end,  but  you  will  enjoy  yourself  heartily. 


These  theories  may  be  of  many  different 
kinds.  One  of  our  friends  rests  his  career  and 
hope  of  salvation  on  the  doctrine  that  eating 
plenty  of  fish  and  going  without  an  overcoat 
whenever  possible  constitute  supreme  happi- 
ness. 


Another  prides  himself  on  not  being  able  to 
roll  a  cigarette.    If  he  were  forced,  at  the  point 

[211] 


Mince  Pie 

of  the  bayonet^  to  roll  a  fag,  it  would  wreck  his 
life. 


Another  is  convinced  that  the  Lost  and  Found 
ads  in  the  papers  all  contain  anarchist  code 
messages,  and  sits  up  late  at  night  trying  to 
unriddle  them. 


How  delightful  it  must  be  to  be  possessed  by 
one  of  these  Theories!  All  the  experiences  of 
the  theorist's  life  tend  to  confirm  his  Theory. 
This  is  always  so.  Did  you  ever  hear  of  a 
Theory  being  confuted? 


Facts  are  quite  helpless  in  the  face  of 
Theories.  For  after  all,  most  Facts  are  insuf- 
ficiently encouraged  with  applause.  When  a 
Fact  comes  along,  the  people  in  charge  are  gen- 
erally looking  the  other  way.  This  is  what  is 
meant  by  Not  Facing  the  Facts. 


Therefore  all  argument  is  quite  useless,  for  it 
only  results  in  stiffening  your  friend's  belief  in 
his  (presumably  wrong)  Theory. 


When  any  one  tries  to  argue  with  you,  say, 
"You  are  nothing  if  not  accurate,  and  you  are 
not  accurate."    Then  escape  from  the  room. 

[212] 


Fixed  Ideas 

When  we  hear  our  friends  diligently  expound- 
ing the  ideas  which  Explain  Everything,  we  are 
wistful.  We  go  oiF  and  say  to  ourself.  We 
really  must  dig  up  some  kind  of  Theory  about 
Life. 


We  read  once  of  a  great  man  that  he  never 
said,  "Well,  possibly  so."  This  gave  us  an  un- 
easy pang. 


It  is  a  mistake  to  be  Open  to  Conviction  en 
so  many  topics,  because  all  one's  friends  try  to 
convince  one.     This  is  very  painful. 


And  it  is  embarrassing  if,  for  the  sake  of  a 
quiet  life,  one  pretends  to  be  convinced.  At 
the  corner  of  Tenth  and  Chestnut  we  allowed 
ourself  to  agree  with  A.  B.,  who  said  that  the 
German  colonies  should  be  internationalized. 
Then  we  had  to  turn  down  Ninth  Street  because 
we  saw  C.  D.  coming,  with  whom  we  had  pre- 
viously agreed  that  Great  Britain  should  have 
German  Africa.  And  in  a  moment  we  had  to 
dodge  into  Sansom  Street  to  avoid  E.  F.,  having 
already  assented  to  his  proposition  that  the 
German  colonies  should  have  self-determination. 
This  kind  of  thing  makes  it  impossible  to  see 
one's  friends  more  than  one  at  a  time. 

[213] 


Mince  Pie 

Perhaps  our  Fixed  Idea  is  that  we  have  no 
Fixed  Ideas. 

Well,  possibly  so. 


■[«14] 


TRIALS  OF  A  PRESIDENT  TRAVELING 
ABROAD 

1  A  A.  M. — Arrive  at  railway  station.     Wel- 

"*■  ^corned  by  King  and  Queen.  Hat  on 
head.     Umbrella  left  hand.     Gloves  on. 

10:01 — Right  glove  off  (hastily)  into  left  hand. 
Hat  off  (right  hand).  Umbrella  hanging  on 
left  arm.  I 

10:02 — Right  glove  into  left  pocket.  Hat  to 
left  hand.     Shake  hands  with  King. 

10:03 — Shake  hands  with  Queen.  Left  glove 
off  to  receive  flowers.  Umbrella  to  right 
hand. 

10:04 — Shake  hands  with  Prime  Minister.  Left 
glove  in  left  hand.  Umbrella  back  to  left 
hand.  Flowers  in  left  hand.  Hat  in  left 
hand. 

10:05 — Enter  King's  carriage.  Try  to  drop 
flowers  under  carriage  unobserved.  Foreign 
Minister  picks  them  up  with  gallant  re- 
mark. 

10:06 — Shake  hands  with  Foreign  Minister.  In 
his  emotional  foreign  manner  he  insists  on 
taking  both  hands.     Quick  work:     Umbrella 

[«16] 


Mince  Pie 

to  right  elbow,  gloves  left  pocket,  hat  under 
right  arm,  flowers  to  right  pocket. 

10:08 — Received  by  Lord  Mayor,  who  offers 
freedom  of  the  city  in  golden  casket.  Casket 
in  left  hand.  Lord  Mayor  in  right  hand, 
Queen  on  left  arm,  umbrella  on  right  arm, 
flowers  and  gloves  bursting  from  pockets, 
hat  (momentarily)  on  head. 

10:10 — Delegation  of  statesmen.  Statesmen  in 
right  hand.  Hat,  umbrella,  gloves.  King, 
flowers,  casket  in  left  hand.  Situation  get- 
ting complicated. 

10:15 — Ceremonial  reception  by  Queen  Mother. 
Getting  confused.  Queen  Mother  in  left 
pocket,  umbrella  on  head,  gloves  on  right 
hand,  hat  in  left  hand.  King  on  head,  flowers 
in  trousers  pocket.     Casket  under  left  arm. 

10:17 — Complete  collapse.  Failure  of  the 
League  of  Nations. 


[216] 


DIARY  OF  A  PUBLISHER'S  OFFICE 
BOY 

JAN.  7,  1600.  Thys  daye  ye  Bosse  bade  mee 
remaine  in  ye  Outer  Office  to  keepe  Callers 
from  Hinderyng  Hym  in  Hys  affaires.  There 
came  an  olde  Bumme  (ye  same  wch  hath  beene 
heare  before)  wth  ye  Scrypte  of  a  Playe, 
dubbed  Roumio  ande  Julia.  Hys  name  was 
Shake  a  Speare  or  somethynge  lyke  thatt.  Ye 
Bosse  bade  mee  reade  ye  maunuscripp  myselfe, 
as  hee  was  Bussy.  I  dyd.  Ande  of  alle  foul- 
ishnesse,  thys  playe  dyd  beare  away  ye  prize. 
Conceive  ye  Absuerditye  of  laying  ye  Sceane 
in  Italy,  it  ys  welle  knowne  that  Awdiences  will 
not  abear  nothyng  that  is  not  sett  neare  at 
Home.  Butt  woarse  stille,  thys  fellowe  pre- 
sumes to  kille  offe  Boath  Heroe  ande  Heroine 
in  ye  Laste  Acte,  wch  is  Intolerabble  toe  ye  Pub- 
licke.  Suerley  noe  chaunce  of  Success  in  thys. 
Ye  awthour  dyd  reappeare  in  ye  aufternoone, 
and  dyd  seeke  to  borrowe  a  crowne  from  mee, 
but  I  sente  hym  packing.  Ye  Bosse  hath  hearti- 
lye  given  me  Styx  forr  admitting  such  Vaga- 
bones  to  ye  Office.     I  tolde  maister   Shake  a 

[217] 


Mince  Pie 

Speare  that  unlesse  hee  colde  learne  to  wryte 
Beste  Sellers  such  as  Master  Spenser's  Faerye 
Quene  (wch  wee  have  put  through  six  editions) 
there  was  suerly  noe  Hope  for  hym.  Hee  tooke 
thys  advyse  in  goode  parte,  and  wente.  Hys 
jerkin  wolde  have  beene  ye  better  for  a 
patchinge. 


[218] 


THE  DOG'S  COMMANDMENTS 


FROM  a  witless  puppy  I  brought  thee  up: 
gave  thee  fire  and  food,  and  taught  thee  the 
self-respect  of  an  honest  dog.  Hear,  then,  my 
commandments : 

I  am  thy  master:  thou  shalt  have  no  other 
masters  before  me.  Where  I  go,  shalt  thou 
follow;  where  I  abide,  tarry  thou  also. 

My  house  is  thy  castle;  thou  shalt  honor  it; 
guard  it  with  thy  life  if  need  be. 

By  daylight,  suffer  all  that  approach  peace- 
ably to  enter  without  protest.  But  after  night- 
fall thou  shalt  give  tongue  when  men  draw 
near. 

Use  not  thy  teeth  on  any  man  without  good 

[«19] 


Mince  Pie 

cause  and  intolerable  provocation;  and  never  on 
women  or  children. 

Honor  thy  master  and  thy  mistress,  that  thy 
days  may  be  long  in  the  land. 

Thou  shalt  not  consort  with  mongrels,  nor 
with  dogs  that  are  common  or  unclean. 

Thou  shalt  not  steal.  Thou  shalt  not  feed 
upon  refuse  or  stray  bits:  thy  meat  waits  thee 
regularly  in  the  kitchen. 

Thou  shalt  not  bury  bones  in  the  flower 
beds. 

Cats  are  to  be  chased,  but  in  sport  only ;  seek 
not  to  devour  them:  their  teeth  and  claws  are 
deadly. 

Thou  shalt  not  snap  at  my  neighbor,  nor  at 
his  wife,  nor  his  child,  nor  his  manservant,  nor 
his  maidservant,  nor  his  ox,  nor  his  ass,  nor  do 
harm  to  aught  that  is  his. 

The  drawing-room  rug  is  not  for  thee,  nor 
the  sofa,  nor  the  best  armchair.  Thou  hast 
the  porch  and  thy  own  kennel.  But  for  the 
love  I  bear  thee,  there  is  always  a  corner  for 
thee  by  the  winter  fire. 

Meditate  on  these  commandments  day  and 
night;  so  shalt  thou  be  a  dog  of  good  breeding 
and  an  honor  to  thy  master. 


[220] 


THE  VALUE  OF  CRITICISM 

OUR  friend  Dove  Dulcet,  the  well-known 
sub-caliber  poet,  has  recently  issued  a 
slender  volume  of  verses  called  Peanut  Butter. 
He  thinks  we  may  be  interested  to  see  the  com- 
ment of  the  press  on  his  book.  We  don't  know 
why  he  should  think  so,  but  anyway  here  are 
some  of  the  reviews: 

Buffalo  Lens:  Mr.  Dulcet  is  a  sweet  singer, 
and  we  could  only  wish  there  were  twice  as 
many  of  these  delicately  rhymed  fancies.  There 
is  not  a  poem  in  the  book  that  does  not  exhibit 
a  tender  grasp  of  the  beautiful  homely  emotions. 
Perhaps  the  least  successful,  however,  is  that 
entitled  "On  Losing  a  Latchkey." 

Syracuse  Hammer  and  Tongs:  This  little 
book  of  savage  satires  will  rather  dismay  the 
simple-minded  reader.  Into  the  acid  vials  of 
his  song  Mr.  Dulcet  has  poured  a  bitter  cynic- 
ism. He  seems  to  us  to  be  an  irremediable  pes- 
simist, a  man  of  brutal  and  embittered  life.  In 
one  poem,  however,  he  does  soar  to  a  very  fine 
imaginative  height.     This  is  the  ode  "On  Los- 

[221] 


Mince  Pie 

ing  a  Latchkey,"  which  is  worth  all  the  rest  of 
the  pieces  put  together. 

New  York  Reaping  Hook:  It  is  odd  that 
Mr.  Dove  Dulcet,  of  Philadelphia  we  believe, 
should  have  been  able  to  find  a  publisher  for 
this  volume.  These  queer  little  doggerels  have 
an  instinctive  aflfinity  for  oblivion,  and  they  will 
soon  coalesce  with  the  driftwood  of  the  literary 
Sargasso  Sea.  Among  many  bad  things  we  can 
hardly  remember  ever  to  have  seen  anything 
worse  than  "On  Losing  a  Latchkey." 

Philadelphia  Prism:  Our  gifted  fellow 
townsman,  Mr.  Dove  Dulcet,  has  once  more 
demonstrated  his  ability  to  set  humble  themes  in 
entrancing  measures.  He  calls  his  book  Peanut 
Butter.  A  title  chosen  with  rare  discernment, 
for  the  little  volume  has  all  the  savor  and  nour- 
ishing properties  of  that  palatable  delicacy.  We 
wish  there  were  space  to  quote  "On  Losing  a 
Latchkey,"  for  it  expresses  a  common  human 
experience  in  language  of  haunting  melody  and 
witty  brevity.  How  rare  it  is  to  find  z  poet 
with  such  metrical  skill  who  is  content  to  handle 
the  minor  themes  of  life  in  this  mood  of  deli- 
cious pleasantry.  The  only  failure  in  the  book 
is  the  banal  sonnet  entitled  "On  Raiding  the 
Ice  Box."    This  we  would  be  content  to  forego. 

Pittsburgh  Cylinder:  It  is  a  relief  to  meet 
one  poet  who  deals  with  really  exalted  themes. 
[222] 


The  Value  of  Criticism 

We  are  profoundly  weary  of  the  myriad  versi- 
fiers who  strum  the  so-called  lowly  and  domestic 
themes.  Mr.  Dulcet,  however,  in  his  superb  free 
verse,  has  scaled  olympian  heights,  disdaining 
the  customary  twaddling  topics  of  the  rhyme- 
sters. Such  an  amazing  allegory  as  "On  Raiding 
the  Ice  Box,"  which  deals,  of  course,  with  the 
experience  of  a  man  who  attempts  to  explore 
the  mind  of  an  elderly  Boston  spinster,  marks 
this  powerful  poet  as  a  man  of  unusual  satirical 
and  philosophical  depth. 

Boston  Penseroso:  We  find  Mr.  Dove  Dul- 
cet's  new  book  rather  baffling.  We  take  his 
poem  *'0n  Raiding  the  Ice  Box'*  to  be  a  paean 
in  honor  of  the  discovery  of  the  North  Pole; 
but  such  a  poem  as  "On  Losing  a  Latchkey," 
is  quite  inscrutable.  Our  guess  is  that  it  is  an 
intricate  psycho-analysis  of  a  pathological  case 
of  amnesia.  Our  own  taste  is  more  for  the  verse 
that  deals  with  the  gentler  emotions  of  every 
day,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Dulcet 
is  an  artist  to  be  reckoned  with. 


[«23] 


A  MARRIAGE  SERVICE  FOR  COM- 
MUTERS 

{Fill  in  railroad  as  required) 

WILT  thou.  Jack,  have  this  woman  to  be 
thy  wedded  wife,  to  live  together  in  so 

far  as  the Railroad  will  allow  ?     Wilt  thou 

love  her,  comfort  her,  honor  and  keep  her,  take 


her  to  the  movies,  prevent  the  furnace  from  go- 
ing out,  and  come  home  regularly  on  the  5:42 
train?" 

"I  will." 

"Wilt  thou,  Jill,  have  this  commuter  to  thy 
wedded  husband,  bearing  in  mind  snowdrifts, 
[224] 


A  Marriage  Service  for  Commuters 

washouts,  lack  of  servants  and  all  other  pen- 
alties of  suburban  life?  Wilt  thou  obey  him 
and  serve  him,  love,  honor  and  keep  him,  and 
let  him  smoke  a  corncob  pipe  in  the  house?'* 

"I  will." 

"I,  Jack,  take  thee,  Jill,  to  my  wedded  wife, 
from  6  P.  M.  until  8  A.  M.,  as  far  as  per- 
mitted by  the  Railroad,  schedule  subject 

to  change  without  notice,  for  better,  for  worse, 
for  later,  for  earlier,  to  love  and  to  cherish,  and 
I  promise  to  telephone  you  when  I  miss  the 
train." 

*'I,  Jill,  take  thee.  Jack,  to  my  wedded  hus- 
band, subject  to  the  mutability  of  the  suburban 

service,  changing  trains  at  ,  to  have  and 

to  hold,  save  when  the  card  club  meets  on 
Wednesday  evenings,  and  thereto  I  give  thee 
my  troth." 


[225] 


THE  SUNNY  SIDE  OF  GRUB  STREET 


I  OFTEN  wonder  how  many  present-day 
writers  keep  diaries.  I  wish  The  Bookman 
would  conduct  a  questionnaire  on  the  subject.  I 
have  a  suspicion  that  Charley  Towne  keeps  one 
— probably  a  grim,  tragic  parchment  wherein 
that  waggish  soul  sets  down  its  secret  musings. 
I  dare  say  Louis  Untermeyer  has  one  (morocco, 
tooled  and  goffered,  with  gilt  edges),  and  looks 
over  its  nipping  paragraphs  now  and  then  with 
a  certain  relish.  It  undoubtedly  has  a  large 
portmanteau  pocket  with  it,  to  contain  clippings 
of  Mr.  Untermeyer's  letters  to  the  papers  taking 
issue  with  the  reviews  of  his  books.  There  is 
no  way  for  the  reviewer  to  escape  that  back- 
fire. I  knew  one  critic  who  was  determined  to 
[226] 


The  Sunny  Side  of  Grub  Street 

review  one  of  Louis's  books  in  such  a  way  that 
the  author  would  have  no  excuse  for  writing 
to  the  Times  about  it.  He  was  overwhelmingly 
complimentary.  But  along  came  the  usual  letter 
by  return  of  post.  Mr.  Untermeyer  asked  for 
enough  space  to  "diverge  from  the  critique  at 
one  point."  He  said  the  review  was  too  ful- 
some. 

I  wish  Don  Marquis  kept  a  diary,  but  I  am 
quite  sure  he  doesn't.  Don  is  too — well,  I  was 
going  to  say  he  is  too — but  after  all  he  has  a 
perfect  right  to  be  that  way. 

It's  rather  an  important  thing.  Every  one 
knows  the  fascination  exerted  by  personal  de- 
tails of  authors'  lives.  Every  one  has  hustled  to 
the  Cafe  de  la  Source  in  Paris  because  R.  L.  S. 
once  frequented  it,  or  to  Allaire's  in  New  York 
because  O.  Henry  wrote  it  up  in  one  of  his 
tales,  and  that  sort  of  thing.  People  like  to 
know  all  the  minutiae  concerning  their  favorite 
author.  It  is  not  sufficient  to  know  (let  us  say) 
that  Murray  Hill  or  some  one  of  that  sort,  once 
belonged  to  the  Porrier's  Corner  Club.  One 
wants  to  know  where  the  Porrier's  Corner  Club 
was,  and  who  were  the  members,  and  how  he 
got  there,  and  what  he  got  there,  and  so  forth. 
One  wants  to  know  where  Murray  Hill  (I  take 
his  name  only  as  a  symbol)  buys  his  cigars,  and 
where  he  eats  lunch,  and  what  he  eats,  whether 

[227] 


Mince  Pie 

pigeon  potpie  with  iced  tea  or  hamburg  steak 
and  *'eofFee  with  plenty."  It  is  all  these  inti- 
mate details  that  the  public  has  thirst  for. 

Now  the  point  I  want  to  make  is  this.  Here, 
all  around  us,  is  fine  doings  (as  Murray  Hill 
would  put  it),  the  j oiliest  literary  hullabaloo 
going.  Some  of  the  writers  round  about — Ar- 
thur Guiterman  or  Tom  Masson  or  Witter  Byn- 
ner  or  Tom  Daly,  or  some  of  these  chaps  now 
fitting  down  to  combination-plate  luncheons 
and  getting  off  all  manner  of  merry  quips  and 
confidential  matters — some  of  these  chaps  may 
be  famous  some  day  (posterity  is  so  undiscrim- 
inating)  and  all  that  savory  personal  stuff  will 
have  evaporated  from  our  memories.  The  world 
of  bookmen  is  in  great  need  of  a  new  crop  of 
intimists,  or  whatever  you  call  them.  Barbel- 
lion  chaps.  Henry  Ryecrofts.  We  need  a  chiel 
taking  notes  somewhere. 

Now  if  you  really  jot  down  the  merry  gossip, 
and  make  bright  little  pen  portraits,  and  tell 
just  what  happens,  it  will  not  only  afi*ord  you  a 
deal  of  discreet  amusement,  but  the  diary  you 
keep  will  reciprocate.  In  your  older  years  it 
will  keep  you.  Harper's  Magazine  will  un- 
doubtedly want  to  publish  it,  forty  years  from 
now.  If  that  is  too  late  to  keep  you,  it  will 
help  to  keep  your  descendants.  So  I  wish  some 
of  the  authors  would  confess  and  let  us  know 
[228] 


The  Sunny  Side  of  Grub  Street 

which  of  them  are  doing  it.  It  would  be  jolly 
to  know  to  whom  we  might  confide  the  genial  lit- 
tle items  of  what-not  and  don't-let-this-go-far- 
ther  that  come  the  romids.  The  inside  story  of 
the  literature  of  any  epoch  is  best  told  in  the 
diaries.  I'll  bet  Brander  Matthews  kept  one, 
and  James  Huneker.  It's  a  pity  Professor 
Matthews's  was  a  bit  tedious.  Crabb  Robinson 
was  the  man  for  my  money. 

The  diarists  I  would  choose  for  the  present 
generation  on  Grub  Street  would  be  Heywood 
Broun,  Franklin  Adams,  Bob  Holliday,  William 
McFee,  and  maybe  Ben  De  Casseres  (if  he 
would  promise  not  to  mention  Don  Marquis  and 
Walt  Whitman  more  than  once  per  page).  Mc- 
Fee  might  be  let  off  the  job  by  reason  of  his 
ambrosial  letters.  But  it  just  occurs  to  me 
that  of  course  one  must  not  know  who  is  keep- 
ing the  diary.  If  it  were  known,  he  would  be 
deluged  with  letters  from  people  wanting  to 
get  their  names  into  it.  And  the  really  worth- 
while folks  would  be  on  their  guard. 

But  if  all  the  writers  wait  until  they  are 
eighty  years  old  and  can  write  their  memoirs 
with  the  beautifully  gnarled  and  chalky  old 
hands  Joyce  Kilmer  loved  to  contemplate,  they 
will  have  forgotten  the  comical  pith  of  a  lot  of 
it.  If  you  want  to  reproduce  the  colors  and  col- 
lisions  along  the   sunny   side  of   Grub   Street^ 

[229] 


Mince  Pie 

you've  got  to  jot  down  your  data  before  they 
fade.  I  wish  I  had  time  to  be  diarist  of  such 
matters.  How  candid  I'd  be!  I'd  put  down 
all  about  the  two  young  novelists  who  used  to 
meet  every  day  in  City  Hall  Park  to  compare 
notes  while  they  were  hunting  for  jobs,  and 
make  wagers  as  to  whose  pair  of  trousers  would 
last  longer.  (Quite  a  desirable  essay  could  be 
written,  by  the  way,  on  the  influence  of  trous- 
ers on  the  fortunes  of  Grub  Street,  with  the 
three  stages  of  the  Grub  Street  trouser,  viz.: 
1,  baggy;  2,  shiny;  3,  trousers  that  must  not  be 
stooped  in  on  any  account.)  There  is  an  up- 
Toarious  tale  about  a  pair  of  trousers  and  a  very 
well-known  writer  and  a  lecture  at  Vassar  Col- 
lege, but  these  things  have  to  be  reserved  for 
posterity,  the  legatee  of  all  really  amusing  mat- 
ters. 

But  then  there  are  other  topics,  too,  such  as 
the  question  whether  Ibaiiez  always  wears  a  polo 
shirt,  as  the  photos  lead  one  to  believe.  The 
secret  Philip  Gibbs  told  me  about  the  kind  of 
typewriter  he  used  on  the  western  front.  I 
would  be  enormously  candid  (if  I  were  a  diar- 
ist). I'd  put  down  that  I  never  can  remember 
whether  Vida  Scudder  is  a  man  or  a  woman. 
I'd  tell  what  A.  Edward  Newton  said  when  he 
came  rushing  into  the  office  to  show  me  the 
Severn  death-bed  portrait  of  Keats,  which  he 
[230] 


The  Sunny  Side  of  Grub  Street 

had  just  bought  from  Rosenbach.  I'd  tell  the 
story  of  the  unpublished  letter  of  R.  L.  S. 
which  a  young  man  sold  to  buy  a  wedding 
present,  which  has  since  vanished  (the  R.  L.  S. 
letter).  I'd  tell  the  amazing  story  of  how  a 
piece  of  Walt  Whitman  manuscript  was  lost  in 
Philadelphia  on  the  memorable  night  of  June 
30,  1919.  I'd  tell  just  how  Vachel  Lindsay  be- 
haves when  he's  off  duty.  I'd  even  forsake 
everything  to  travel  over  to  England  with 
Vachel  on  his  forthcoming  lecture  tour,  as  I'm 
convinced  that  England's  comments  on  Vachel 
will  be  worth  listening  to. 

The  ideal  man  to  keep  the  sort  of  diary  I  have 
in  mind  would  be  Hilaire  Belloc.  It  was  an  an- 
cestor of  Mr.  Belloc,  Dr.  Joseph  Priestley  (who 
died  in  Pennsylvania,  by  the  way)  who  discov- 
ered oxygen;  and  it  is  Mr.  Belloc  himself  who 
has  discovered  how  to  put  oxygen  into  the  mod- 
ern English  essay.  The  gift,  together  with  his 
love  of  good  eating,  probably  came  to  him  from 
his  mother,  Bessie  Rayner  Parkes,  who  once 
partook  of  Samuel  Rogers's  famous  literary 
breakfasts.  And  this  brings  us  back  to  our  old 
friend  Crabb  Robinson,  another  of  the  Rogers 
breakfast  clan.  Robinson  is  never  wildly  excit- 
ing, but  he  gives  a  perfect  panorama  of  his  day. 
It  is  not  often  that  one  finds  a  man  who  asso- 
ciated with  such  figures  as  Goethe,  Wordsworth, 

[231] 


Mince  Pie 

Coleridge,  Blake,  and  Lamb.  He  had  the  true 
gift  for  diarizing.  What  could  be  better,  for 
instance,  than  this  little  miniature  picture  of  the 
rise  and  fall  of  teetotalism  in  one  well-loved 
person  ? — 

Mary  Lamb,  I  am  glad  to  say,  is  just  now  very 
comfortable.  She  has  put  herself  under  Doctor  Tut- 
hill,  who  has  prescribed  water.  Charles,  in  conse- 
quence, resolved  to  accommodate  himself  to  her,  and 
since  Lord-Mayor's  day  has  abstained  from  all  other 
liquor,  as  well  as  from  smoking.  We  shall  all  re- 
joice if  this  experiment  succeeds.  .  .  .  His  change  of 
habit,  though  it,  on  the  whole,  improves  his  health, 
yet  when  he  is  low-spirited,  leaves  him  without  a 
remedy  or  relief. 

— Letter  of  Henry  Crabb  Robinson  to  Miss  Words- 
worth, December  23,  1810. 

Spent  part  of  the  evening  with  Charles  Lamb  (un- 
well)  and  his  sister. 

— Robinson's  Diary,  January  8,  1811. 

Late  in  the  evening  Lamb  called,  to  sit  with  me 
while  he  smoked  his  pipe. 

— Robinson's  Diary,  December   20,   1814. 

Lamb  was  in  a  happy  frame,  and  I  can  still  recall 
to  my  mind  the  look  and  tone  with  which  he  ad- 
dressed Moore,  when  he  could  not  articulate  very 
distinctly:  "Mister  Moore,  will  you  drink  a  glass 
of  wine  vi^ith  me?" — suiting  the  action  to  the  word, 
and  hobnobbing. 

— Robinson's  Diary,  April  4,  1823. 

[232] 


The  Sunny  Side  of  Grub  Street 

Now  that,  I  maintain,  is  just  the  kind  of 
stuff  we  need  in  a  diary  of  today.  How  fas- 
cinating that  old  book  Peyrat's  "Pastors  of  the 
Desert'*  became  when  we  learned  that  R.  L.  S. 
had  a  copy  of  the  second  volume  of  it  in  his 
sleeping  sack  when  he  camped  out  with  Modes- 
tine.  Even  so  it  may  be  a  matter  of  delicious  in- 
terest to  our  grandsons  to  know  what  book  Joe 
Hergesheimer  was  reading  when  he  came  in 
town  on  the  local  from  West  Chester  recently, 
and  who  taught  him  to  shoot  craps.  It  is  in- 
teresting to  know  what  Will  and  Stephen  Benet 
(those  skiey  fraternals)  eat  when  they  visit  a 
Hartford  Lunch ;  to  know  whether  Gilbert  Ches- 
terton is  really  fond  of  dogs  (as  "The  Flying 
Inn"  implies,  if  you  remember  Quoodle),  and 
whether  Edwin  Meade  Robinson  and  Edwin 
Arlington  Robinson,  arcades  amho,  ever  write  to 
each  other.  It  would  be  interesting — indeed  it 
would  be  highly  entertaining — to  compile  a  list 
of  the  free  meals  Vachel  Lindsay  has  received, 
and  to  ascertain  the  number  of  times  Harry 
Kemp  has  been  "discovered."  It  would  be  in- 
teresting to  know  how  many  people  shudder 
with  faint  nausea  (as  I  do)  when  they  pick  up 
a  Dowson  playlet  and  find  it  beginning  with  a 
list  of  characters  including  "A  Moon  Maiden" 
and  "Pierrot,"  scene  set  in  "a  glade  in  the  Pare 
du  Petit  Trianon — a  statue  of  Cupid — Pierrot 

[233] 


Mince  Pie 

enters  with  his  hands  full  of  lilies.**  It  would 
be  interesting  to  resume  the  number  of  brazen 
imitations  of  McCrae's  "In  Flanders  Felds'* — 
here  is  the  most  striking,  put  out  on  a  highly 
illuminated  card  by  a  New  York  publishing 
firm: 

Rest  in  peace,  ye  Flanders's  dead. 
The  poppies  still  blow  overhead. 

The  larks  ye  heard,  still  singing  fly. 

They  sing  of  the  cause  which  made  thee  die. 

And  they  are  heard  far  down  below. 

Our  fight  is  ended  with  the  foe. 

The  fight  for  right,  which  ye  begun 
And  which  ye  died  for,  we  have  won. 
Rest  in  peace. 

The  man  who  wrote  that  ought  to  be  the  first 
man  mobilized  for  the  next  war. 

All  such  matters,  with  a  plentiful  bastinado 
for  stupidity  and  swank,  are  the  privilege  of  the 
diarist.  He  may  indulge  himself  in  the  de- 
lightful luxury  of  making  post-mortem  enemies. 
He  may  wonder  what  the  average  reviewer 
thinks  he  means  by  always  referring  to  single 
publishers  in  the  plural.  A  note  which  we 
often  see  in  the  papers  runs  like  this :  "Soon  to 
be  issued  by  the  Dorans  (or  Knopfs  or 
Huebsches),'*  etc.,  etc.  This  is  an  echo  of  the 
old  custom  when  there  really  were  two  or  more 
[234] 


The  Sunny  Side  of  Grub  Street 

Harpers.  But  as  long  as  there  is  only  one 
Doran,  one  Huebsch,  one  Knopf,  it  is  simply 
idiotic. 

Well,  as  we  go  sauntering  along  the  sunny 
side  of  Grub  Street,  meditating  an  essay  on 
the  Mustache  in  Literature  (we  have  shaved  off 
our  own  since  that  man  Murray  Hill  referred  to 
it  in  the  public  prints  as  "a.  young  hay-wagon"), 
we  are  wondering  whether  any  of  the  writing 
men  are  keeping  the  kind  of  diary  we  should 
like  our  son  to  read,  say  in  1950.  Perhaps  Miss 
Daisy  Ashford  is  keeping  one.  She  has  the 
seeing  eye.  Alas  that  Miss  Daisy  at  nine  years 
old  was  a  puella  unius  libri. 


[235] 


BURIAL  SERVICE  FOR  A  NEWSPAPER 
JOKE 

AFTEU  the  remains  have  been  decently  in- 
.^A.  terred,  the  following  remarks  shall  he  ut- 
tered hy  the  presiding  humorist: 

This  joke  has  been  our  refuge  from  one  gen- 
eration to  another: 

Before  the  mountains  were  brought  forth  this 
joke  was  lusty  and  of  good  repute': 

In  the  life  of  this  joke  a  thousand  years  are 
but  as  yesterday. 

Blessed,  therefore,  is  this  joke,  which  now 
resteth  from  its  labors. 

But  most  of  our  jokes  are  of  little  continu- 
ance: though  there  be  some  so  strong  that  they 
come  to  fourscore  years,  yet  is  their  humor  then 
but  labor  and  sorrow: 

For  a  joke  that  is  born  of  a  humorist  hath 
but  a  short  time  to  live  and  is  full  of  misery. 
It  Cometh  up  and  is  cut  down  like  a  flower.  It 
fleeth  as  if  it  were  a  shadow  and  abideth  but  one 
edition. 

It  is  sown  in  quotation,  it  is  raised  in  mis- 
quotation : 
[236] 


Burial  Service  for  a  Newspaper  Joke 

We  therefore  eonwiit  this  joke  to  the  files  of 
the  country  newspapers,  where  it  shall  circu- 
late forever,  world  without  end. 


[237] 


ADVICE  TO  THOSE  VISITING  A  BABY 

INTERVIEW  the  baby  alone  if  possible. 
If,  however,  both  parents  are  present,  say, 
"It  looks  like  its  mother."  And,  as  an  after- 
thought, **I  think  it  has  its  father's  elbows." 

If  uncertain  as  to  the  infant's  sex,  try  some 
such  formula  as,  "He  looks  like  her  grand- 
parents," or  "She  has  his  aunt's  sweet  disposi- 
tion." 

When  the  mother  only  is  present,  your  situa- 
tion is  critical.  Sigh  deeply  and  admiringly,  to 
imply  that  you  wish  you  had  a  child  like  that. 
Don't  commit  yourself  at  all  until  she  gives  a 
lead. 

When  the  father  only  is  present,  you  may  be 
a  little  reckless.  Give  the  father  a  cigar  and 
venture,  "Good  luck,  old  man ;  it  looks  like  your 
mother-in-law." 

If  possible,  find  out  beforehand  how  old  the 
child  is.  Call  up  the  Bureau  of  Vital  Statis- 
tics. If  it  is  two  months  old,  say  to  the  mother, 
"Rather  large  for  six  months,  isn't  he?" 

If  the  worst  has  happened  and  the  child 
[238] 


Advice  to  those  Visiting  a  Baby- 
really  does  look  like  its  father,  the  most  tactful 
thing  is  to  say,  ''Children  change  as  they  grow 
older."  Or  you  may  suggest  that  same  mis- 
take has  been  made  at  the  hospital  and  they 
have  brought  home  the  wrong  baby. 

If  left  alone  in  the  room  with  the  baby,  throw 
a  sound-proof  rug  over  it  and  escape. 


[239] 


ABOU  BEN  WOODROW 

(in  Paris) 


ABOU  BEN  WOODROW   (may  his  tribe 
increase !) 
Awoke  one  night  from  a  deep  dream  of  peace, 
And  saw,  among  the  gifts  piled  on  the  floor 
(Making    the    room    look    like    a    department 

store). 
An  Angel  writing  in  a  book  of  gold. 
Now  much  applause  had  made  Ben  Woodrow 

bold 
And  to  the  Presence  in  the  room  said  he, 
"Qu'est-ce  que  c'est  que  ga  que  tu  ecris?" 
[240] 


Abou  Ben  Woodrow 

Or^  in  plain  English,  "May  I  not  inquire 
What  writest  thou?'*     The  Angel  did  not  tire 
But  kept  on  scribing.     Then  it  turned  its  head 
(All   Europe   could   not   turn   Ben   Woodrow's 

head!) 
And  with  a  voice  almost  as  sweet  as   Creel's 
Answered:     "The  names  of  those  who  grease 

the  wheels 
Of  progress  and  have  never,  never  blundered.* 
Ben  Woodrow  lay  quite  still,  and  sadly  won- 
dered. 
"And  is  mine  one?"  he  queried.    "Nay,  not  so," 
Replied  the  Angel.     Woodrow  spoke  more  low 
But  cheerly  still,  and  in  his  May  I  notting 
Fashion  he  said:     "Of  course  you  may  be  rot- 
ting, 
But  even  if  you  are,  may  I  not  then 
Be  writ  as  one  that  loves  his  fellow  men? 
Do  that  for  me,  old  chap;  just  that;  that  merely 
And  I  am  yours,  cordially  and  sincerely." 
The  Angel  wrote,  and  vanished  like  a  mouse. 
Next  night  returned  (accompanied  by  House) 
And  showed  the  names  whom  love  of  Peace  had 

blest. 
And  lo!  Ben  Woodrow's  name  led  all  the  rest! 


[241] 


MY  MAGNIFICENT  SYSTEM 

IN  these  days  when  the  streets  are  so  perilous, 
every  man  who  goes  about  the  city  ought  to 
be  sure  that  his  pockets  are  in  good  order,  so 
that  when  he  is  run  down  by  a  roaring  motor- 
truck the  police  will  have  no  trouble  in  identi- 
fying him  and  communicating  with  his  cred- 
itors. 

I  have  always  been  very  proud'  of  my  pocket 
system.  As  others  may  wish  to  install  it,  I  will 
describe  it  briefly.  If  I  am  found  prostrate 
and  lifeless  on  the  paving,  I  can  quickly  be 
identified  by  the  following  arrangement  of  my 
private  affairs: 

In  my  right-hand  trouser  leg  is  a  large  hole, 
partially  surrounded  by  pocket. 

In  my  left-hand  trouser  pocket  is  a  compli- 
cated bunch  of  keys.  I  am  not  quite  sure  what 
they  all  belong  to,  as  I  rarely  lock  anything. 
They  are  very  useful,  however,  as  when  I  walk 
rapidly  they  evolve  a  shrill  jingling  which  often 
conveys  the  impression  of  minted  coinage.  One 
of  them,  I  think,  unlocks  the  coffer  where  I  se- 
[242] 


My  Magnificent  System 

cretly  preserve  the  pair  of  spats  I  bought  when 
I  became  engaged* 

My  right-hand  hip  pocket  is  used,  in  summer, 
for  the  handkerchief  reserves  (hayfever  suf- 
ferers, please  notice) ;  and,  in  winter,  for 
stamps.  It  is  tapestried  with  a  sheet  of  three- 
cent  engravings  that  got  in  there  by  mistake 
last  July,  and  adhered. 

My  left-hand  hip  pocket  holds  my  memor- 
andum book,  which  contains  only  one  entry: 
Remember  not  to  forget  anything. 

The  left-hand  upper  waistcoat  pocket  holds  a 
pencil,  a  commutation  ticket  and  a  pipe  cleaner. 

The  left-hand  lower  waistcoat  pocket  contains 
what  the  ignorant  wilLesteem  scraps  of  paper. 
This,  however,  is  the  hub  and  nerve  center  of 
my  mnemonic  system.  When  I  want  to  remem- 
ber anything  I  write  it  down  on  a  small  slip  of 
paper  and  stick  it  in  that  pocket.  Before  going 
to  bed  I  clean  out  the  pocket  and  see  how  many 
things  I  have  forgotten  during  the  day.  This 
promotes  tranquil  rest. 

The  right-hand  upper  waistcoat  pocket  is 
used  for  wall-paper  samples.  Here  I  keep 
clippings  of  all  the  wallpapers  at  home,  so  that 
when  buying  shirts,  ties,  socks  or  books  I  can 
be  sure  to  get  something  that  will  harmonize. 
My  taste  in  these  matters  has  sometimes  been 
aspersed,  so  I  am  playing  safe. 

[243] 


Mince  Pie 

The  right-hand  lower  waistcoat  pocket  is  used 
for  small  change.  This  is  a  one-way  pocket; 
exit  only. 

The  inner  pocket  of  my  coat  is  used  for  rail- 
road timetables,  most  of  which  have  since  been 
changed.  Also  a  selected  assortment  of  unan- 
swered letters  and  slips  of  paper  saying,  "Call 
Mr.  So-and-so  before  noon."  The  first  thing 
to  be  done  by  my  heirs  after  collecting  the  re- 
mains must  be  to  communicate  with  the  writers 
of  those  letters,  to  assure  them  that  I  was  struck 
down  in  the  fullness  of  my  powers  while  on  the 
way  to  the  post  office  to  mail  an  answer. 

My  right-hand  coat  pocket  is  for  pipes. 

Left-hand  coat  pocket  for  tobacco  and 
matches. 

The  little  tin  cup  strapped  in  my  left  armpit 
is  for  Swedish  matches  that  failed  to  ignite. 
It  is  an  invention  of  my  own. 

I  once  intended  to  allocate  a  pocket  especially 
for  greenbacks,  but  found  it  unnecessary. 


[S44] 


LETTERS  TO  CYNTHIA 

I.     In  Praise  of  Boobs 

Dear  Sir — What  is  a  Booh?  Will  you  please 
discuss  the  subject  a  little?  Perhaps  I'm  a  booh 
for  asking — hut  I'd  like  to  know. 

Cynthia. 


BE    FRIENDLY   WITH   BOOBS 

The  Boob,  my  dear  Cynthia,  is  Nature's  de- 
vice for  mitigating  the  quaintly  blended  in- 
felicities of  existence.  Never  be  too  bitter 
about  the  Boob.  The  Boob  is  you  and  me  and 
the  man  in  the  elevator. 

[245] 


Mince  Pie 

THE    BOOB    IS    HUMANITT's    HOPE 

As  long  as  the  Boob  ratio  remains  high,  hn- 
manity  is  safe.  The  Boob  is  the  last  reposi- 
tory of  the  stalwart  virtues.  The  Boob  is  faith, 
hope  and  charity.  The  Boob  is  the  hope  of  con- 
servatives, the  terror  of  radicals  and  the  meal 
check  of  cynics.  If  you  are  run  over  on  Market 
Street  and  left  groaning  under  the  mailed  fist 
of  a  flivver,  the  Bolsheviki  and  I.  W.  W.  will  be 
watching  the  shop  windows.  It  will  be  the 
Boob  who  will  come  to  your  aid,  even  before  the 
cop  gets  there. 

1653    BOOBS 

If  you  were  to  dig  a  deep  and  terrible  pit  in 
the  middle  of  Chestnut  Street,  and  illuminate 
it  with  signs  and  red  lights  and  placards  read- 
ing, DO  NOT  WALK  INTO  THIS  PIT,  165S 
Boobs  would  tumble  into  it  during  the  course  of 
the  day.  Boobs  have  faith.  They  are  eager  to 
plunge  in  where  an  angel  wouldn't  even  show  his 
periscope. 

THE  BOOB   RATIO 

But  that  does  not  prove  anything  creditable  to 

human  nature.     For  though  1658  people  would 

fall   into    our   pit    (which   any    Rapid    Transit 

Company  will  dig  for  us  free  of  charge)  26,448 

[246] 


Letters  to  Cynthia 

would  cautiously  and  suspiciously  and  con- 
temptuously avoid  it.  The  Boob  ratio  is  just 
about  1  to  16. 

H£  LOOKS  FOR  ANOELS 

It  does  not  pay  to  make  fun  of  the  Boob. 
There  is  no  malice  in  him,  no  insolence,  no  pas- 
sion to  thrive  at  the  expense  of  his  fellows.  If 
he  sees  some  one  on  a  street  corner  gazing  open- 
mouthed  at  the  sky,  he  will  do  likewise,  and 
stand  there  for  half  hour  with  his  apple  of 
Adam  expectantly  vibrating.  But  is  that  a 
shameful  trait?  May  not  a  Boob  expect  to  see 
angels  in  the  shimmering  blue  of  heaven?  Is 
he  more  disreputable  than  the  knave  who  frisks 
his  watch  meanwhile?  And  suppose  he  does 
see  an  angel,  or  even  only  a  blue  acre  of  sky — 
is  that  not  worth  as  much  as  the  dial  in  his 
poke  ? 

HE  SEES   THEM 

It  is  the  Boob  who  is  always  willing  to  look 
hopefully  for  angels  who  will  see  them  ulti- 
mately. And  the  man  who  is  only  looking  for 
the  Boob's  timepiece  will  do  time  of  his  own  by 
and  by. 

HE  BEARS  NO  MALICB 

The  Boob  is  convinced  that  the  world  is  con- 
ducted on  genteel  and  friendly  principles.     He 

[247] 


Mince  Pie 

feels  in  his  heart  that  even  the  law  of  gravity 
will  do  him  no  harm.  That  is  why  he  steps 
miabashed  into  our  pit  on  Chestnut  Street;  and 
finding  himself  sprawling  in  the  bottom  of  it, 
he  bears  no  ill  will  to  Sir  Isaac  Newton.  He 
simply  knows  that  the  law  of  gravity  took  him 
for  some  one  else — a  street-cleaning  contractor, 
perhaps. 

A  DEFINITION 

A  small  boy  once  defined  a  Boob  as  one  who 
always  treats  other  people  better  than  he  does 
himself. 

HE    IS    UNSUSPICIOUS 

The  Boob  is  hopeful,  cheery,  more  concerned 
over  other  people's  troubles  than  his  own.  He 
goes  serenely  unsuspicious  of  the  brick  under 
the  silk  hat,  even  when  the  silk  hat  is  on  the 
head  of  a  Mayor  or  City  Councilman.  He  will 
pull  every  trigger  he  meets,  regardless  that  the 
whole  world  is  loaded  and  aimed  at  him.  He 
will  keep  on  running  for  the  5:42  train,  even 
though  the  timetable  was  changed  the  day  be- 
fore yesterday.  He  goes  through  the  revolving 
doors  the  wrong  way.  He  forgets  that  the 
banks  close  at  noon  on  Saturdays.  He  asks  for 
oysters  on  the  first  of  June.  He  will  wait  for 
hours  at  the  Chestnut  Street  door,  even  though 
[248] 


Letters  to  Cynthia 

his  wife  told  him  to  meet  her  at  the  ribbon 
counter. 

HIS  WIFE 

Yes,  he  has  a  wife.  But  if  he  was  not  a 
Boob  before  marriage  he  will  never  become  so 
after.  Women  are  the  natural  antidotes  of 
Boobs. 

RECEPTIVE 

The  Boob  is  not  quarrelsome.  He  is  willing 
to  believe  that  you  know  more  about  it  than  he 
does.    He  is  always  at  home  for  ideas. 

HE  IS  HAPPY 

Of  course,  what  bothers  other  people  is  that 
the  Boob  is  so  happy.  He  enjoys  himself.  He 
falls  into  that  Rapid  Transit  pit  of  ours  and 
has  more  fun  out  of  the  tumble  than  the  sneer- 
ing 26,448  who  stand  above  untumbled.  The 
happy  simp  prefers  a  4  per  cent  that  pays  to  a 
15  per  cent  investment  that  returns  only  en- 
graved prospectuses.  He  stands  on  that  street 
corner  looking  for  an  imaginary  angel  parachut- 
ing down,  and  enjoys  himself  more  than  the 
Mephistopheles  who  is  laughing  up  his  sleeve. 

nature's  darling 

Nature  must  love  the  Boob,  because  she  is  a 
good  deal  of  a  Boob  herself.     How  she  has 

[249] 


Mince  Pie 

squandered  herself  upon  mountain  peaks  that 
are  useless  except  for  the  Alpenstock  Trust; 
upon  violets  that  can't  be  eaten;  upon  giraffes 
whose  backs  slope  too  steeply  to  carry  a  pack! 
Can  it  be  that  the  Boob  is  Nature's  darling,  that 
she  intends  him  to  outlive  all  the  rest? 

A  BRIEF  MAXIM 

Be  sure  you're  a  Boob,  and  then  go  ahead. 

IN  CONCLUSION 

But  never,  dear  Cynthia,  confuse  the  Boob 
with  the  Poor  Fish.  The  Poor  .Fish,  as  an 
Emersonian  thinker  has  observed,  is  the  Boob 
gone  wrong.  The  Poor  Fish  is  the  cynical, 
sneering  simpleton  who,  if  he  did  see  an  angel, 
would  think  it  was  only  some  one  dressed  up  for 
the  movies.  The  Poor  Fish  is  Why  Boobs  Leave 
Home. 

II.     Simplification 

Dear  Sir — How  can  life  be  simplified?  In 
the  office  where  I  work  the  pressure  of  affairs 
is  very  exacting.  Often  I  do  not  have  a  mo- 
ment to  think  over  my  own  affairs  before  ^  p.  m. 
There  are  a  great  many  matters  that  puzzle  me, 
and  I  am  afraid  that  if  I  go  on  working  so 
[250] 


Letters  to  Cynthia 

hard  the  sweetest  hours  of  my  youth  may  pass 
before  I  have  given  them  proper  consideration. 
It  is  very  irassible.    Can  you  help  mef 

Cynthia, 

salutation  to  cynthia 

Cynthia,  my  child:  How  are  you?  It  is  very 
delightful  to  hear  from  you  again.  During  the 
recent  months  I  have  been  very  lonely  indeed 
without  your  comradeship  and  counsel  with  re- 
gard to  the  great  matters  which  were  under 
consideration. 

THINKING    IT    OVER 

Well,  Cynthia,  when  your  inquiry  reached  me 
I  propped  my  feet  on  the  desk,  got  out  the  corn- 
cob pipe  and  thought  things  over.  How  to  sim- 
plify life.'*  How,  indeed!  It  is  a  subject  that 
interests  me  strangely.  Of  course,  the  easiest 
method  is  to  let  one's  ancestors  do  it  for  one. 
If  you  have  been  lucky  enough  to  choose  a  sim- 
ple-minded, quiet-natured  quartet  of  grandpar- 
ents, frugal,  thrifty  and  foresighted,  who  had 
the  good  sense  to  buy  property  in  an  im- 
proving neighborhood  and  keep  their  money 
compounding  at  a  fair  rate  of  interest,  the  prob- 
lem is  greatly  clarified.  If  they  have  hung  on 
to  the  old  farmstead,  with  its  huckleberry  pas- 

[261] 


Mince  Pie 

ture  and  cowbells  tankling  homeward  at  sunset 
and  a  bright  brown  brook  cascading  down  over 
ledges  of  rock  into  a  swimming  hole,  then  again 
your  problem  has  possible  solutions.  Just  go 
out  to  the  farm,  with  a  copy  of  Matthew  Ar- 
nold's "Scholar  Gipsy"  (you  remember  the 
poem,  in  which  he  praises  the  guy  who  had 
sense  enough  to  leave  town  and  live  in  the 
suburbs  where  the  Bolsheviki  wouldn't  bother 
him),  and  don't  leave  any  forwarding  address 
with  the  postoffice.  But  if,  as  I  fear  from  an 
examination  of  your  pink-scalloped  notepaper 
with  its  exhalation  of  lilac  essence,  the  vortex 
of  modern  jazz  life  has  swept  you  in,  the  crisis 
is  far  more  intricate. 


TAKE   THE    MATTER   IN    YOUR    OWN    HANDS 

Of  course,  my  dear  Cynthia,  it  is  better  to 
simplify  your  own  life  than  to  have  some  one 
else  do  it  for  you.  The  Kaiser,  for  instance, 
has  had  his  career  greatly  simplified,  but  hardly 
in  a  way  he  himself  would  have  chosen.  The 
first  thing  to  do  is  to  come  to  a  clear  under- 
standing of  (and  to  let  your  employer  know  you 
understand)  the  two  principles  that  underlie 
modern  business.  There  are  only  two  kinds  of 
affairs  that  are  attended  to  in  an  office.  First, 
things  that  absolutely  must  be  done.  These  are 
[252] 


Letters  to  Cynthia 

often  numerous;  but  remember,  that  since  they 
have  to  be  done,  if  you  don't  do  them  some  one 
else  will.  Second,  things  that  don't  have  to  be 
done.  And  since  they  don't  have  to  be  done, 
why  do  them?  This  will  simplify  matters  a 
great  deal. 

FURTHER  SUGGESTIONS 

The  next  thing  to  do  is  to  stop  answering 
letters.  Even  the  firm's  most  persistent  cus- 
tomers will  cease  troubling  you  by  and  bye  if 
you  persist.  Then,  stop  answering  the  tele- 
phone. A  pair  of  office  shears  can  sever  a  tele- 
phone wire  much  faster  than  any  mechanician 
can  keep  it  repaired.  If  the  matter  is  really 
urgent,  let  the  other  people  telegraph.  While 
you  are  perfecting  this  scheme  look  about,  in  a 
dignified  way,  for  another  job.  Don't  take  the 
first  thing  that  offers  itself,  but  wait  until  some- 
thing really  congenial  appears.  It  is  a  good 
thing  to  choose  some  occupation  that  will  keep 
you  a  great  deal  in  the  open  air,  preferably 
something  that  involves  looking  at  shop  win- 
dows and  frequent  visits  to  the  receiving  teller 
at  the  bank.  It  is  nice  to  have  a  job  in  a  tall 
building  overlooking  the  sea,  with  office  hours 
from  3  to  5  p.  m. 

[253] 


Mince  Pie 


HOW    EASY,    AFTER    AXL I 

Many  people,  dear  Cynthia,  are  harassed 
because  they  do  not  realize  how  easy  it  is  to 
get  out  of  a  job  which  involves  severe  and  con- 
centrated effort.  My  child,  you  must  not  allow 
yourself  to  become  discouraged.  Almost  any 
job  can  be  shaken  off  in  time  and  with  perse- 
verance. Looking  out  of  the  window  is  a  great 
help.  There  are  very  few  businesses  where 
what  goes  on  in  the  office  is  half  as  interesting 
as  what  is  happening  on  the  street  outside.  If 
your  desk  does  not  happen  to  be  near  a  win- 
dow, so  much  the  better.  You  can  watch  the 
sunset  admirably  from  the  window  of  the  ad- 
vertising manager's  office.  Call  his  attention 
to  the  rosy  tints  in  the  afterglow  or  the  glori- 
ous pallor  of  the  clouds.  Advertising  mana- 
gers are  apt  to  be  insufficiently  appreciative  of 
these  things.  Sometimes,  when  they  are  clos- 
eted with  the  Boss  in  conference,  open  the 
ground-glass  door  and  say,  "I  think  it  is  going 
to  rain  shortly.'*  Carry  your  love  of  the  beau- 
tiful into  your  office  life.  This  will  inevitably 
pave  the  way  to  simplification. 

ENVELOPES    WITH    LOOP    HOLES 

And  never  open  envelopes  with  little  trans- 
parent panes  of  isinglass  in  their  fronts.    Never 
[254] 


Letters  to  Cynthia 

keep  copies  of  your  correspondence.  For,  if 
your  letters  are  correct,  no  copy  will  be  neces- 
sary. And,  if  incorrect,  it  is  far  better  not  to 
have  a  copy.  If  you  were  to  tell  me  the  exact 
nature  of  your  work  I  could  offer  many  more 
specific  hints. 

YOUR    INQUIRY,    CHILD,    TOUCHES    BTY   HEART 

I  am  intimately  interested  in  your  problem, 
my  child,  for  I  am  a  great  believer  in  simpli- 
fication. It  is  hard  to  follow  out  one's  own 
precepts;  but  the  root  of  happiness  is  never  to 
contradict  any  one  and  never  agree  with  any 
one.  For  if  you  contradict  people,  they  will 
try  to  convince  you ;  and  if  you  agree  with  them, 
they  will  enlarge  upon  their  views  until  they 
say  something  you  will  feel  bound  to  contra- 
dict.   Let  me  hear  from  you  again. 


[%55] 


TO  AN  UNKNOWN  DAMSEL 

ON  Fifth  Street,  in  a  small  cafe, 
Upstairs   (our  tables  were  adjacent), 
I  saw  you  lunching  yesterday. 

And  felt  a  secret  thrill  complacent. 

You  sat,  and,  waiting  for  your  meal. 
You  read  a  book.     As  I  was  eating, 

Dear  me,  how  keen  you  made  me  feel 
To  give  you  just  a  word  of  greeting! 

And  as  your  hand  the  pages  turned, 

I  watched  you,  dumbly  contemplating — 

0  how  exceedingly  I  yearned 

To  ask  the  girl  to  keep  you  waiting. 

1  wished  that  I  could  be  the  maid 

To  serve  your  meal  or  crumb  your  cloth,  or 
Beguile  some  hazard  to  my  aid 

To  know  your  verdict  on  that  author! 

And  still  you  read.     You  dropped  your  purse. 

And  yet,  adorably  unheeding. 
You  turned  the  pages,  verse  by  verse, — 

I  watched,  and  worshiped  you  for  readingi 
[256] 


To  an  Unknown  Damsel 

You  know  not  what  restraint  it  took 
To  mind  my  etiquette,  nor  flout  it 

By  telling  you  I  know  that  book. 

And  asking  what  you  thought  about  it, 

I  cursed  myself  for  being  shy — 
I  longed  to  make  polite  advances; 

Alas !  I  let  the  time  go  by. 

And  Fortune  gives  no  second  chances. 

You  read,  but  still  your  face  was  calm — 
(I  scanned  it  closely,  wretched  sinner!) 

You  showed  no  sign — I  felt  a  qualm — 

And  then  the  waitress  brought  your  dinner. 

Those  modest  rhymes,  you  thought  them  fair? 

And  will  you  sometimes  praise  or  quote  them? 
And  do  you  ask  why  I  should  care? 

Oh,  Lady,  it  was  I  who  wrote  them! 


[2571 


THOUGHTS   ON    SETTING   AN   ALARM 
CLOCK 

MARK  the  monitory  dial. 
Set  the  gong  for  six  a.  m. — 
Then,  until  the  hour  of  trial. 
Clock  a  little  sleep,  pro  tern. 

As  I  crank  the  dread  alarum 

Stern  resolve  I  try  to  fix: 
My  ideals,  shall  I  mar  *em 

When  the  awful  moment  ticks? 

Heaven  strengthen  my  intention. 
Grant  me  grace  my  vow  to  keep : 

Would  the  law  enforced  Prevention 
Of  such  Cruelty  to  Sleep ! 


[258] 


SONGS  IN  A  SHOWER  BATH 


Hot  Water 


GENTLY,  while  the  drenching  dribble 
Courses  down  my  sweltered  form, 
I  am  basking  like  a  sybil. 

Lazy,  languorous  and  warm. 
I  am  unambitious,  flaccid. 

Well  content  to  drowse  and  dream: 
How  I  hate  life's  bitter  acid — 

Leave  me  here  to  stew  and  steam. 
Underneath  this  jet  so  torrid 

I  forget  the  world's  sad  wrath; 
O  activity  is  horrid! 

Leave  me  in  my  shower-bath! 

[259] 


Mince  Pie 

Cold  Water 

BUT  when  I  turn  the  crank 
OZeus! 
A  silver  ecstasy  thrills  me! 
I  caper  and  slap  my  chilled  thighs^ 
I  plan  to  make  a  card  index  of  all  my  ideas 
And  feel  like  an  efficiency  expert. 
I  tweak  Fate  by  the  nose 
And  know  I  could  succeed  in  anything. 
I  throw  up  my  head 
And  glut  myself  with  icy  splatter  .  .  . 
To-day  I  will  really 
Begin  my  career ! 


[260] 


ON  DEDICATING  A  NEW  TEAPOT 

BOILING  water  now  is  poured. 
Pouches  filled  with  fresh  tobacco. 
Round  the  hospitable  board 

Fragrant  steams  Ceylon  or  Pekoe. 

Bread  and  butter  is  cut  thin. 

Cream  and  sugar,  yes,  bring  them  on; 
Ginger  cookies  in  their  tin. 

And  the  dainty  slice  of  lemon. 

Let  the  marmalade  be  brought. 

Buns  of  cinnamon  adhesive; 
And,  to  catch  the  leaves,  you  ought 

To  be  sure  to  have  the  tea-sieve. 

But,  before  the  cups  be  filled — 
Cups  that  cause  no  ebriation — 

Let  a  genial  wish  be  willed 
Just  by  way  of  dedication. 

Here's  your  fortune,  gentle  pot: 
To  our  thirst  you  offer  slakeage; 

Bright  blue  china,  may  I  not 

Hope  no  maid  will  cause  you  breakage. 

[261] 


Mince  Pie 

Kindest  ministrant  to  man, 

Long  be  jocund  years  before  you. 

And  no  meaner  fortune  than 

Helen's  gracious  hand  to  pour  you! 


[262] 


THE  UNFORGIVABLE  SYNTAX 

A  CERTAIN  young  man  never  knew 
Just  when  to  say  whom  and  when  who; 
"The  question  of  choosing/* 
He  said,  "is  confusing; 
I  wonder  if  which  wouldn't  do?" 

Nothing  is  so  illegitimate 

As  a  noun  when  his  verbs  do  not  fit  him;  it 

Makes  him  disturbed 

If  not  properly  verbed — 
If  he  asks  for  the  plural,  why  git  him  it ! 

Lie  and  lay  offer  slips  to  the  pen 

That  have  bothered  most  excellent  men: 

You  can  say  that  you  lay 

In  bed — ^yesterday; 
If  you  do  it  to-day,  you're  a  hen ! 

A  person  we  met  at  a  play 
Was  cruel  to  pronouns  all  day: 

She  would  frequently  cry 

"Between  you  and  I, 
If  only  us  girls  had  our  way — !" 

[263] 


VISITING    POETS 

WE  were  giving  a  young  English  poet  a 
taste  of  Philadelphia,  trying  to  show 
him  one  or  two  of  the  simple  beauties  that 
make  life  agreeable  to  us.  Having  just  been 
photographed,  he  was  in  high  good  humor. 

"What  a  pity/'  he  said,  "that  you  in  Amer- 
ica have  no  literature  that  reflects  the  amazing 
energy,  the  humor,  the  raciness  of  your  life! 
I  woke  up  last  night  at  the  hotel  and  heard  a 
motor  fire  engine  thunder  by.  There's  a  sym- 
bol of  the  extraordinary  vitality  of  America! 
My,  if  I  could  only  live  over  here  a  couple  of 
years,  how  I'd  like  to  try  my  hand  at  it.  It's 
a  pity  that  no  one  over  here  is  putting  down 
the  humor  of  your  life." 

"Have  you  read  O.  Henry?"  we  suggested. 

"Extraordinary  country,"  he  went  on.  "Some- 
body turned  me  loose  on  Mr.  Morgan's  library 
in  New  York.  There  was  a  librarian  there,  but 
I  didn't  let  her  bother  me.  I  wanted  to  see 
that  manuscript  of  *Endymion'  they  have  there. 
I  supposed  they  would  take  me  up  to  a  glass 
case  and  let  me  gaze  at  it.  Not  at  all.  They 
[264] 


Visiting  Poets 

put  it  right  in  my  hands  and  I  spent  three  quar- 
ters of  an  hour  over  it.  Wonderful  stuff.  You 
know,  the  first  edition  of  my  book  is  selling  at 
a  double  premium  in  London.  It's  been  out 
only  eighteen  months.*' 

"How  do  you  fellows  get  away  with  it?'*  we 
asked  humbly. 

"I  hope  Pond  isn't  going  to  book  me  up  for 
too  many  lectures/'  he  said.  "I've  got  to  get 
back  to  England  in  the  spring.  There's  a 
painter  over  there  waiting  to  do  my  portrait. 
But  there  are  so  many  places  I've  got  to  lec- 
ture— everybody  seems  to  want  to  hear  about 
the  young  English  poets." 

"I  hear  Philip  Gibbs  is  just  arriving  in  New 
York/*  we  said. 

"Is  that  so?  Dear  me,  he'll  quite  take  the 
wind  out  of  my  sails,  won't  he?  Nice  chap, 
Gibbs.  He  sent  me  an  awfully  cheery  note 
when  I  went  out  to  the  front  as  a  war  corre- 
spondent. Said  he  liked  my  stuff  about  the 
sodgers.  He'll  make  a  pot  of  money  over  here, 
won't  he?" 

We  skipped  across  City  Hall  Square  abreast 
of  some  trolley  cars. 

"I  say,  these  trams  keep  one  moving,  don't 
they?**   he  said.     "You  know,   I   was  tremen- 

[265] 


Mince  Pie 

dously  bucked  by  that  department  store  yon 
took  me  to  see.  That's  the  sort  of  place  one 
has  to  go  to  see  the  real  art  of  America.  Those 
paintings  in  there,  by  the  elevators,  they  were 
done  by  a  young  English  girl.  Friend  of  mine 
■ — in  fact,  she  did  the  pictures  for  my  first  book. 
Pity  you  have  so  few  poets  over  here.  You 
mustn't  make  me  lose  my  train;  I've  got  a  date 
with  Vachel  Lindsay  and  Edgar  Lee  Masters 
in  New  York  to-night.  Vachel's  an  amusing 
bird.  I  must  get  him  over  to  England  and  get 
him  started.  I've  written  to  Edmund  Gosse 
about  him,  and  I'm  going  to  write  again.  What 
a  pity  Irvin  Cobb  doesn't  write  poetry !  He's  r. 
great  writer.  What  vivacity,  what  a  rich  vocab- 
ulary !" 

"Have  you  read  Mark  Twain?"  we  quav- 
ered. 

**0h,  Mark's  grand  when  he's  serious;  but 
when  he  tries  to  be  funny,  you  know,  it's  too 
obvious.  I  can  always  see  him  feeling  for  the 
joke.  No,  it  doesn't  come  off.  You  know  an 
artist  simply  doesn't  exist  for  me  unless  he  has 
something  to  say.  That's  what  makes  me  so 
annoyed  with  R.  L.  S.  In  *Weir  of  Hermiston* 
and  the  *New  Arabian  Nights*  he  really  had 
something  to  say;  the  rest  of  the  time  he  was 
playing  the  fool  on  some  one  else's  instrument. 
You  know  style  isn't  something  you  can  borrow 

[266] 


Visiting  Poets 

from  some  one  else;  it's  the  unconscious  revela- 
tion of  a  man's  own  personality." 
We  agreed. 

"I  wonder  if  there  aren't  some  clubs  around 
here  that  would  like  to  hear  me  talk?"  he  said. 
*'You  know,  I'd  like  to  come  back  to  Philadel- 
phia if  I  could  get  some  dates  of  that  sort. 
Just  put  me  wise,  old  man,  if  you  hear  of  any- 
thing. I  was  telling  some  of  your  poets  in 
New  York  about  the  lectures  I've  been  giving. 
Those  chaps  are  fearfully  rough  with  one. 
You  know,  they'll  just  ride  over  one  rough- 
shod if  you  give  them  a  chance.  They  hate  to 
see  a  fellow  a  success.  Awful  tripe  some  of 
them  are  writing.  They  don't  seem  to  be  ex- 
pressing the  spirit,  the  fine  exhilaration,  of 
American  life  at  all.  If  I  had  my  way,  I'd 
make  every  one  in  America  read  Rabelais  and 
Madame  Bovary.  Then  they  ought  to  study 
some  of  the  old  English  poets,  like  Marvell,  to 
give  them  precision.  It's  lots  of  fun  telling 
them  these  things.  They  respond  famously. 
Now  over  in  my  country  we  poets  are  all  so 
reserved,  so  shy,  so  taciturn. 

"You  know  Pond,  the  lecture  man  in  New 
York,  was  telling  me  a  quaint  story  about  Mase- 
field.     Great  friend  of  mine,  old  Jan  Masefield. 

[267] 


Mince  Pie 

He  turned  up  in  New  York  to  talk  at  some  show 
Pond  was  running.  Had  on  some  horrible  old 
trench  boots.  There  was  only  about  twenty- 
minutes  before  the  show  began.  'Well/  says 
Pond,  hoping  Jan  was  going  to  change  his 
clothes,  *are  you  all  ready?*  *Oh,  yes/  says 
Jan.  Pond  was  graveled;  didn't  know  just 
what  to  do.  So  he  says,  hoping  to  give  Jan  a 
hint,  'Well,  I've  just  got  to  get  my  boots  pol- 
ished.' Of  course,  they  didn't  need  it — Amer- 
icans' boots  never  do — but  Pond  sits  down  on 
a  boot-polishing  stand  and  the  boy  begins  to 
polish  for  dear  life.  Jan  sits  down  by  him, 
deep  in  some  little  book  or  other,  paying  no 
attention.  Pond  whispers  to  the  boy,  'Quick, 
polish  his  boots  while  he's  reading.*  Jan  was 
deep  in  his  book,  never  knew  what  was  going 
on.  Then  they  went  off  to  the  lecture,  Jan  in 
his  jolly  old  sack  suit." 

We  went  up  to  a  private  gallery  on  Walnut 
•  Street,  where  some  of  the  most  remarkable  lit- 
erary treasures  in  the  world  are  stored,  such  as 
the  original  copy  of  Elia  given  by  Charles 
Lamb  to  the  lady  he  wanted  to  marry,  Fanny 
Kelly.  There  we  also  saw  some  remarkable 
first  editions  of  Shelley. 

"You  know,"  he  said,  "Mrs.  L in  New 

York — I  had  an  introduction  to  her  from  Jan — 
[268] 


Visiting  Poets 

wanted  to  give  me  a  first  edition  of  Shelley, 
but  I  wouldn't  let  her," 

"How  do  you  fellows  get  away  with  it?"  we 
said  again  humbly. 

"Well,  old  man/'  he  said,  "I  must  be  going. 
Mustn't  keep  Vachel  waiting.  Is  this  where  I 
train?  What  a  ripping  station!  Some  day  I 
must  write  a  poem  about  all  this.  What  a  pity 
you  have  so  few  poets  .  .  ." 


[269] 


A  GOOD  HOME  IN  THE  SUBURBS 

THERE  are  a  number  of  empty  apartments 
in  the  suburbs  of  our  mind  that  we  shall 
be  glad  to  rent  to  any  well-behaved  ideas. 

These  apartments  (unfurnished)  all  have 
southern  exposure  and  are  reasonably  well 
lighted.      They  have   emergency   exits. 

We  prefer  middle-aged,  reasonable  ideas 
that  have  outgrown  the  diseases  of  infancy. 
No  ideas  need  apply  that  will  lie  awake  at  night 
and  disturb  the  neighbors,  or  will  come  home 
very  late  and  wake  the  other  tenants.  This  is 
an  orderly  mind,  and  no  gambling,  loud  laugh- 
ter and  carnival  or  Pomeranian  dogs  will  be 
admitted. 

If  necessary,  the  premises  can  be  improved 
to  suit  high-class  tenants. 

No  lease  longer  than  six  months  can  be  given 
to  any  one  idea,  unless  it  can  furnish  positive 
guarantees  of  good  conduct,  no  bolshevik  affil- 
iations and  no  children. 

We  have  an  orphanage  annex  where  home- 
less juvenile  ideas  may  be  accommodated  until 
they  grow  up. 
[270] 


A  Good  Home  in  the  Suburbs 

TKe  southwestern  section  of  our  mind,  where 
these  apartments  are  available,  is  some  distance 
from  the  bustle  and  traffic,  but  all  the  central 
points  can  be  reached  without  difficulty.  Mid- 
dle-aged, unsophisticated  ideas  of  domestic 
tastes  will  find  the  surroundings  almost  ideal. 

For  terms  and  blue  prints  apply  janitor  on 
the  premises. 


[271] 


WALT  WHITMAN  MINIATURES 


A  DECENT  respect  to  the  opinions  of  man- 
kind requires  that  one  should  have  some 
excuse  for  being  away  from  the  office  on  a 
working  afternoon.  September  sunshine  and 
trembling  blue  air  are  not  sufficient  reasons,  it 
seems.  Therefore,  if  any  one  should  brutally 
ask  what  I  was  doing  the  other  day  dangling 
down  Chestnut  Street  toward  the  river,  I  should 
have  to  reply,  "Looking  for  the  Wenonah/' 
The  Wenonah,  you  will  immediately  conclude, 
is  a  moving  picture  theater.  But  be  patient  a 
moment. 

Lower  Chestnut  Street  is  a  delightful  place 
for  one  who  does  not  get  down  there  very  often. 
The  face  of  wholesale  trade,  dingier  than  the 
glitter  of  uptown  shops,  is  far  more  exciting 
and  romantic.  Pavements  are  cumbered  with 
vast  packing  cases ;  whiffs  of  tea  and  spice  well 
up  from  cool  cellars.  Below  Second  Street  I 
found  a  row  of  enormous  sacks  across  the  curb, 
[272] 


Walt  Whitman  Miniatures 

with  bright  red  and  green  wool  pushing  through 
holes  in  the  burlap.  Such  signs  as  WOOL, 
NOILS  AND  WASTE  are  frequent.  I  won- 
der what  noils  are  ?  A  big  sign  on  Front  Street 
proclaims  TEA  CADDIES,  which  has  a  pleas- 
ant grandmotherly  flavor.  A  little  brass  plate, 
gleamingly  polished,  says  HONORARY  CON- 
SULATE OF  JAPAN.  Beside  immense  mo- 
tor trucks  stood  a  shabby  little  horse  and  buggy, 
restored  to  service,  perhaps,  by  the  war-time 
shortage  of  gasoline.  It  was  a  typical  one- 
horse  shay  of  thirty  years  ago. 

I  crossed  over  to  Camden  on  the  ferryboat 
Wildwood,  observing  in  the  course  of  the  voy- 
age her  sisters,  Bridgeton,  Camden,  Salem  and 
Hammonton.  It  is  curious  that  no  matter  where 
one  goes,  one  will  always  meet  people  who  are 
traveling  there  for  the  first  time.  A  small  boy 
next  to  me  was  gazing  in  awe  at  the  stalwart 
tower  of  the  Victor  Company,  and  snuffing  with 
pleasure  the  fragrance  of  cooking  tomatoes  that 
makes  Camden  savory  at  this  time  of  year. 
Wagonloads  of  ripe  Jersey  tomatoes  making 
their  way  to  the  soup  factory  are  a  jocund  sight 
across  the  river  just  now. 

Every  ferry  passenger  is  familiar  with  the 
rapid  tinkling  of  the  ratchet  wheel  that  warps 
the  landing  stage  up  to  the  level  of  the  boat's 
deck.     I  asked  the  man  who  was  running  the 

[273] 


Mince  Pie 

wheel  where  I  would  find  the  Wenonah.  "She 
lays  over  in  the  old  Market  Street  slip/'  he  re- 
plied, and  cheerfully  showed  me  just  where  to 
find  her.  "Is  she  still  used?"  I  asked.  "Mostly 
on  Saturday  nights  and  holidays,"  he  said, 
"when  there's  a  big  crowd  going  across." 

The  Wenonah,  as  all  Camden  seafarers  know, 
is  a  ferryboat,  one  of  the  old-timers,  and  I 
was  interested  in  her  because  she  and  her  sis- 
ter, the  Beverly,  were  Walt  Whitman's  favorite 
ferries.  He  crossed  back  and  forth  on  them 
hundreds  of  times  and  has  celebrated  them  in 
several  paragraphs  in  Specimen  Days.  Per- 
haps this  is  the  place  to  quote  his  memorandum 
dated  January  12,  1882,  which  ought  to  interest 
all  lovers  of  the  Camden  ferry: 

"Such  a  show  as  the  Delaware  presented  an 
hour  before  sundown  yesterday  evening,  all 
along  between  Philadelphia  and  Camden,  is 
worth  weaving  into  an  item.  It  was  full  tide, 
a  fair  breeze  from  the  southwest,  the  water  of 
a  pale  tawny  color,  and  just  enough  motion  to 
make  things  frolicsome  and  lively.  Add  to 
these  an  approaching  sunset  of  unusual  splen- 
dor, a  broad  tumble  of  clouds,  with  much  gold- 
en haze  and  profusion  of  beaming  shaft  and 
dazzle.  In  the  midst  of  all,  in  the  clear  drab 
of  the  afternoon  light,  there  steamed  up  the 
river  the  large  new  boat,  the  Wenonah,  as 
[274] 


Walt  Whitman  Miniatures 

pretty  an  obj  ect  as  you  could  wish  to  see^  lightly 
and  swiftly  skimming  along,  all  trim  and  white, 
covered  with  flags,  transparent  red  and  blue 
streaming  out  in  the  breeze.  Only  a  new  ferry- 
boat, and  yet  in  its  fitness  comparable  with  the 
prettiest  product  of  Nature's  cunning,  and  ri- 
valing it.  High  up  in  the  transparent  ether 
gracefully  balanced  and  circled  four  or  five 
great  sea  hawks,  while  here  below,  mid 
the  pomp  and  picturesqueness  of  sky  and 
river,  swam  this  creature  of  artificial  beauty 
and  motion  and  power,  in  its  way  no  less  per- 
fect.'' 

You  will  notice  that  Walt  Whitman  describes 
the  Wenonah  as  being  white.  The  Pennsyl- 
vania ferryboats,  as  we  know  them,  are  all  the 
brick-red  color  that  is  familiar  to  the  pres- 
ent generation.  Perhaps  older  navigators  of 
the  Camden  crossing  can  tell  us  whether  the 
boats  were  all  painted  white  in  a  less  smoky 
era? 

The  Wenonah  and  the  Beverly  were  lying  in 
the  now  unused  ferry  slip  at  the  foot  of  Market 
Street,  alongside  the  great  Victor  Talking  Ma- 
chine works.  Picking  my  way  through  an 
empty  yard  where  some  carpentering  was  going 
on,  I  found  a  deserted  pier  that  overlooked  the 
two  old  vessels  and  gave  a  fair  prospect  on  to 
the  river  and  the  profile  of  Philadelphia.     Sit- 

[275] 


Mince  Pie 

ting  there  on  a  pile  of  pebbles,  I  lit  a  pipe  and 
watched  the  busy  panorama  of  the  river.  I  made 
no  effort  to  disturb  the  normal  and  congenial 
lassitude  that  is  the  highest  function  of  the  hu- 
man being:  no  Hindoo  philosopher  could  have 
been  more  pleasantly  at  ease.  (O.  Henry,  one 
remembers,  used  to  insist  that  what  some  of 
his  friends  called  laziness  was  really  "dignified 
repose.")  Two  elderly  colored  men  were  load- 
ing gravel  onto  a  cart  not  far  away.  I  was 
a  little  worried  as  to  what  I  could  say  if  they 
asked  what  I  was  doing.  In  these  days  casual 
loungers  along  docksides  may  be  suspected  of 
depth  bombs  and  high  treason.  The  only  truth- 
ful reply  to  any  question  would  have  been  that 
I  was  thinking  about  Walt  Whitman.  Such  a 
remark,  if  uttered  in  Philadelphia,  would  un- 
doubtedly have  been  answered  by  a  direction 
to  the  chocolate  factory  on  Race  Street.  But 
in  Camden  every  one  knows  about  Walt.  Still, 
the  colored  men  said  nothing  beyond  returning 
my  greeting.  Their  race,  wise  in  simplicity, 
knows  that  loafing  needs  no  explanation  and  is 
its  own  excuse. 

If  Walt  could  revisit  the  ferries  he  loved  so 

well,  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  he  would 

find    the    former    strangely    altered   in    aspect. 

The  New  York  skyline  wears  a  very  different 

[276] 


Walt  Whitman  Miniatures 

silhouette  against  the  sky,  with  its  marvelous 
peaks  and  summits  drawing  the  eye  aloft.  But 
Philadelphia's  profile  is  (I  imagine)  not  much 
changed.  I  do  not  know  just  when  the  City 
Hall  tower  was  finished:  Walt  speaks  of  it  as 
"three-fifths  built"  in  1879-  That,  of  course, 
is  the  dominant  unit  in  the  view  from  Camden. 
Otherwise  there  are  few  outstanding  elements. 
The  gradual  rise  in  height  of  the  buildings, 
from  Front  Street  gently  ascending  up  to 
Broad,  gives  no  startling  contrast  of  elevation 
to  catch  the  gaze.  The  spires  of  the  older 
churches  stand  up  like  soft  blue  pencils,  and 
the  massive  cornices  of  the  Curtis  and  Drexel 
buildings  catch  the  sunlight.  Otherwise  the 
outline  is  even  and  well-massed  in  a  smooth 
ascending  curve. 

It  is  curious  how  a  man  can  stamp  his  per- 
sonality upon  earthly  things.  There  will  al- 
ways be  pilgrims  to  whom  Camden  and  the  Del- 
aware ferries  are  full  of  excitement  and  mean- 
ing because  of  Walt  Whitman.  Just  as  Strat- 
ford is  Shakespeare,  so  is  Camden  Whitman. 
Some  supercilious  observers,  flashing  through 
on  the  way  to  Atlantic  City,  may  only  see  a 
town  in  which  there  is  no  delirious  and  seizing 
beauty.  Let  us  remind  them  of  Walt's  own 
words : 

[277] 


Mince  Pie 

A  great  city  is  that  which  has  the  greatest  men  and 

women, 
If  it  be  a  few  ragged  huts  it  is  still  the  greatest  city 

in  the  whole  world. 

And  as  I  came  back  across  the  river,  and  an 
airplane  hovered  over  us  at  a  great  height,  I 
thought  how  much  we  need  a  Whitman  to-day, 
a  poet  who  can  catch  the  heart  and  meaning  of 
these  grievous  bitter  years,  who  can  make  plain 
the  surging  hopes  that  throb  in  the  breasts  of 
men.  The  world  has  not  flung  itself  into  agony 
without  some  unexpressed  vision  that  lights  the 
sacrifice.  If  Walt  Whitman  were  here  he 
would  look  on  this  new  world  of  moving  pic- 
tures and  gasoline  engines  and  U-boats  and  tell 
us  what  it  means.  His  great  heart,  which 
with  all  its  garrulous  fumbling  had  caught  the 
deep  music  of  human  service  and  fellowship, 
would  have  had  true  and  fine  words  for  us. 
And  yet  he  would  have  found  it  a  hard  world 
for  one  of  his  strolling  meditative  observancy. 
A  speeding  motor  truck  would  have  run  him 
down  long  ago! 

As  I  left  the  ferry  at  Market  Street  I  saw 
that  the  Norwegian  steamer  Taunton  was  un- 
loading bananas  at  the  Ericsson  pier.  Less 
than  a  month  ago  she  picked  up  the  survivors 
of  the  schooner  Madrugada,  torpedoed  by  a 
[278] 


Walt  Whitman  Miniatures 

U-boat  off  Winter  Bottom  Shoal.  On  the  Ma- 
drugada  was  a  young  friend  of  mine,  a  Dutch 
sailor,  who  told  me  of  the  disaster  after  he  was 
landed  in  New  York.  To  come  unexpectedly  on 
the  ship  that  had  rescued  him  seemed  a  great 
adventure.  What  a  poem  Walt  Whitman  could 
have  made  of  it! 


II 


It  is  a  weakness  of  mine — not  a  sinful  one, 
I  hope — that  whenever  I  see  any  one  reading 
a  book  in  public  I  am  agog  to  find  out  what  it 
is.  Crossing  over  to  Camden  this  morning  a 
young  woman  on  the  ferry  was  absorbed  in  a 
volume,  and  I  couldn't  resist  peeping  over  her 
shoulder.  It  was  "Hans  Brinker.'*  On  the 
same  boat  were  several  schoolboys  carrying 
copies  of  Myers*  "History  of  Greece.**  Quaint, 
isn't  it,  how  our  schools  keep  up  the  same  old 
bunk!  What  earthly  use  will  a  smattering  of 
Greek  history  be  to  those  boys?  Surely  to  our 
citizens  of  the  coming  generation  the  battles  of 
the  Marne  will  be  more  important  than  the 
scuffle  at  Salamis. 

My  errand  in  Camden  was  to  visit  the  house 
on  Mickle  Street  where  Walt  Whitman  lived  his 
last  years.  It  is  now  occupied  by  Mrs.  Thomas 
Skymer,   a    friendly    Italian   woman,    and   her 

[279] 


Mince  Pie 

family.  Mrs.  Skymer  graciously  allowed  me 
to  go  through  the  downstairs  rooms. 

I  don't  suppose  any  literary  shrine  on  earth 
is  of  more  humble  and  disregarded  aspect  than 
Mickle  Street.  It  is  a  little  cobbled  byway, 
grimed  with  drifting  smoke  from  the  railway 
yards,  littered  with  wind-blown  papers  and 
lined  with  small  wooden  and  brick  houses  sooted 
almost  to  blackness.  It  is  curious  to  think,  as 
one  walks  along  that  bumpy  brick  pavement, 
that  many  pilgrims  from  afar  have  looked  for- 
ward to  visiting  Mickle  Street  as  one  of  the 
world's  most  significant  altars.  As  Chesterton 
wrote  once,  **We  have  not  yet  begun  to  get  to 
the  beginning  of  Whitman."  But  the  wayfarer 
of  to-day  will  find  Mickle  Street  far  from  im- 
pressive. 

The  little  house,  a  two-story  frame  cottage, 
painted  dark  brown,  is  numbered  330.  (In 
Whitman's  day  it  was  328.)  On  the  pavement 
in  front  stands  a  white  marble  stepping-block 

with  the  carved  initials  W.  W.  given  to 

the  poet,  I  dare  say,  by  the  same  friends  who 
bought  him  a  horse  and  carriage.  A  small  sign, 
in  English  and  Italian,  says:  Thomas  A.  Skymer, 
Automobiles  to  Hire  on  Occasions.  It  was  with 
something  of  a  thrill  that  I  entered  the  little 
front  parlor  where  Walt  used  to  sit,  surrounded 
by  his  litter  of  papers  and  holding  forth  to 
[280] 


Walt  Wliitman  Miniatures 

faithful  listeners.  One  may  safely  say  that  his 
was  a  happy  old  age^  for  there  were  those  who 
never  jibbed  at  protracted  audience. 

A  description  of  that  room  as  it  was  in  the 
last  days  of  Whitman's  life  may  not  be  unin- 
teresting. I  quote  from  the  article  published 
by  the  Philadelphia  Press  of  March  27,  1892, 
the  day  after  the  poet's  death: 

Below  the  windowsill  a  four-inch  pine  shelf  is 
swung,  on  which  rests  a  bottle  of  ink,  two  or  three 
pens  and  a  much-rubbed  spectacle  case. 

(The  shelf,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  is  no  longer 
there.) 

The  table — between  which  and  the  wall  is  the  poet's 
rocker  covered  with  a  worsted  afghan,  presented  to 
him  one  Christmas  by  a  bevy  of  college  girls  who 
admired  his  work — is  so  thickly  piled  with  books  and 
magazines,  letters  and  the  raffle  of  a  literary  desk 
that  there  is  scarcely  an  inch  of  room  upon  which 
he  may  rest  his  paper  as  he  writes.  A  volume  of 
Shakespeare  lies  on  top  of  a  heaping  full  waste 
basket  that  was  once  used  to  bring  peaches  to  mar- 
ket, and  an  ancient  copy  of  Worcester's  Dictionary 
shares  places  in  an  adjacent  chair  with  the  poet's 
old  and  familiar  soft  gray  hat,  a  newly  darned  blue 
woolen  sock  and  a  shoe-blacking  brush.  There  is  a 
paste  bottle  and  brush  on  the  table  and  a  pair  of 
scissors,  much  used  by  the  poet,  who  writes,  for  the 
most  part,  on  small  bits  of  paper  and  parts  of  old 

[281] 


Mince  Pie 

envelopes   and   pastes   them   together  in   patchwork 
fashion. 

In  spite  of  a  careful  examination,  I  could 
find  nothing  in  the  parlor  at  all  reminiscent  of 
Whitman's  tenancy,  except  the  hole  for  the 
stovepipe  under  the  mantel.  One  of  Mrs.  Sky- 
mer's  small  boys  told  me  that  "He"  died  in  that 
room.  Evidently  small  Louis  Skymer  didn't  in 
the  least  know  who  "He"  was,  but  realized 
that  his  home  was  in  some  vague  way  connected 
with  a  mysterious  person  whose  memory  occa- 
sionally attracts  inquirers  to  the  house. 

Behind  the  parlor  is  a  dark  little  bedroom, 
and  then  the  kitchen.  In  a  corner  of  the  back 
yard  is  a  curious  thing:  a  large  stone  or  terra 
cotta  bust  of  a  bearded  man,  very  much  like 
Whitman  himself,  but  the  face  is  battered  and 
the  nose  broken  so  it  would  be  hard  to  assert 
this  definitely.  One  of  the  boys  told  me  that 
it  was  in  the  yard  when  they  moved  in  a  year 
or  so  ago.  The  house  is  a  little  dark,  standing 
between  two  taller  brick  neighbors.  At  the 
head  of  the  stairs  I  noticed  a  window  with  col- 
ored panes,  which  lets  in  spots  of  red,  blue  and 
yellow  light.  I  imagine  that  this  patch  of  vivid 
color  was  a  keen  satisfaction  to  Walt's  acute 
senses.  Such  is  the  simple  cottage  that  one 
associates  with  America's  literary  declaration  of 
independence. 
[282] 


Walt  Whitman  Miniatures 

The  other  Whitman  shrine  in  Camden  is  the 
tomb  in  Harleigh  Cemetery,  reached  by  the 
Haddonfield  trolley.  Doctor  Oberholtzer,  in  his 
"Literary  History  of  Philadelphia/'  calls  it 
"tawdry/'  to  which  I  fear  I  must  demur.  Built 
into  a  quiet  hillside  in  that  beautiful  cemetery, 
of  enormous  slabs  of  rough-hewn  granite  with 
a  vast  stone  door  standing  symbolically  ajar,  it 
seemed  to  me  grotesque,  but  greatly  impressive. 
It  is  a  weird  pagan  cromlech,  with  a  huge  tri- 
angular boulder  above  the  door  bearing  only 
the  words  WALT  WHITMAN.  Palms  and 
rubber  plants  grow  in  pots  on  the  little  curved 
path  leading  up  to  the  tomb;  above  it  is  an  un- 
combed hillside  and  trees  flickering  in  the  air.. 
At  this  tomb,  designed  (it  is  said)  by  Whitman 
himself,  was  held  that  remarkable  funeral  cere- 
mony on  March  30,  1892,  when  a  circus  tent 
was  not  large  enough  to  roof  the  crowd,  and 
peanut  venders  did  business  on  the  outskirts  of 
the  gathering.  Perhaps  it  is  not  amiss  to  re- 
call what  Bob  IngersoU  said  on  that  occasion : 

"He  walked  among  verbal  varnishers  and  ve- 
neerers,  among  literary  milliners  and  tailors,, 
with  the  unconscious  dignity  of  an  antique  god. 
He  was  the  poet  of  that  divine  democracy  that 
gives  equal  rights  to  all  the  sons  and  daughters 
of  men.     He  uttered  the  great  American  voice." 

And  though   one  finds   in  the  words   of  th© 

[283] 


Mince  Pie 

naive  IngersoU  the  squeaking  timber  of  the 
soapbox,  yet  even  a  soapbox  does  lift  a  man  a 
few  inches  above  the  level  of  the  clay. 

Well,  the  Whitman  battle  is  not  over  yet,  nor 
ever  will  be.  Though  neither  Philadelphia  nor 
Camden  has  recognized  330  Mickle  Street  as 
one  of  the  authentic  shrines  of  our  history 
(Lord,  how  trimly  dight  it  would  be  if  it  were 
in  New  England!),  Camden  has  made  a  certain 
amend  in  putting  Walt  into  the  gay  mosaic  that 
adorns  the  portico  of  the  new  public  library  in 
Cooper  Park.  There,  absurdly  represented  in 
an  austere  black  cassock,  he  stands  in  the  fol- 
lowing frieze  of  great  figures:  Dante,  Whit- 
man, Moliere,  Gutenberg,  Tyndale,  Washington, 
Penn,  Columbus,  Moses,  Raphael,  Michael  An- 
gelo,  Shakespeare,  Longfellow  and  Palestrina. 
I  believe  that  there  was  some  rumpus  as  to 
whether  Walt  should  be  included;  but,  anyway, 
there  he  is. 

You  will  make  a  great  mistake  if  you  don't 
ramble  over  to  Camden  some  day  and  fleet  the 
golden  hours  in  an  observant  stroll.  Himself 
the  prince  of  loafers,  Walt  taught  the  town  to 
loaf.  When  they  built  the  new  postoffice  over 
there  they  put  round  it  a  ledge  for  philosophic 
lounging,  one  of  the  most  delightful  architec- 
tural features  I  have  ever  seen.  And  on  Third. 
Street,  just  around  the  corner  from  330  Mickle 


Walt  Whitman  Miniatures 

Street,  is  the  oddest  plumber's  shop  in  the  world. 
Mr.  George  F.  Hammond,  a  Civil  War  veteran,, 
who  knew  Whitman  and  also  Lincoln,  came  to 
Camden  in  '69-  In  1888  he  determined  to  build 
a  shop  that  would  be  different  from  anything 
on  earth,  and  well  he  succeeded.  Perhaps  it  is 
symbolic  of  the  shy  and  harassed  soul  of  the 
plumber,  fleeing  from  the  unreasonable  demands 
of  his  customers,  for  it  is  a  kind  of  Gothic 
fortress.  Leaded  windows,  gargoyles,  mascu- 
line medusa  heads,  a  sallyport,  loopholes  and  a 
little  spire.  I  stopped  in  to  talk  to  Mr.  Ham- 
mond, and  he  greeted  me  graciously.  He  says 
that  people  have  come  all  the  way  from  Cali- 
fornia to  see  his  shop,  and  I  can  believe  it.  It 
is  the  work  of  a  delightful  and  original  spirit 
who  does  not  care  to  live  in  a  demure  hutch  like 
all  the  rest  of  us,  and  has  really  had  some  fun 
out  of  his  whimsical  little  castle.  He  says  he 
would  rather  live  in  Camden  than  in  Philadel- 
phia, and  I  daresay  he's  right. 

Ill 

Something  in  his  aspect  as  he  leaned  over 
the  railing  near  me  drew  me  on  to  speak  to  him. 
I  don't  know  just  how  to  describe  it  except  by 
saying  that  he  had  an  understanding  look.  He 
gave  me  the  impression  of  a  man  who  had  spent 
his  life  in  thinking  and  would  understand  me,^ 

[285] 


Mince  Pie 

whatever  I  might  say.  He  looked  like  the  kind 
of  man  to  whom  one  would  find  one's  self  say- 
ing wise  and  thoughtful  things.  There  arc 
some  people,  you  know,  to  whom  it  is  impossible 
to  speak  wisdom  even  if  you  should  wish  to. 
No  spirit  of  kindly  philosophy  speaks  out  of 
their  eyes.  You  find  yourself  automatically 
saying  peevish  or  futile  things  that  you  do  not 
in  the  least  believe. 

The  mood  and  the  place  were  irresistible  for 
communion.  The  sun  was  warm  along  the 
river  front  and  my  pipe  was  trailing  a  thin 
whiiF  of  blue  vapor  out  over  the  gently  fluctu- 
ating water,  which  clucked  and'  sagged  along 
the  slimy  pilings.  Behind  us  the  crash  and 
banging  of  heavy  traffic  died  away  into  a 
dreamy  undertone  in  the  mild  golden  shimmer 
of  the  noon  hour. 

The  old  man  was  apparently  lost  in  revery, 
looking  out  over  the  river  toward  Camden.  He 
was  plainly  dressed  in  coat  and  trousers  of 
some  coarse  weave.  His  shirt,  partly  unbut- 
toned under  the  great  white  sweep  of  his  beard, 
was  of  gray  flannel.  His  boots  were  those  of 
a  man  much  accustomed  to  walking.  A  weather- 
stained  sombrero  was  on  his  head.  Beneath  it 
his  thick  white  hair  and  whiskers  wavered  in  the 
soft  breeze.  Just  then  a  boy  came  out  from 
the  near-by  ferry  house  carrying  a  big  crate  of 
[286] 


Walt  Whitman  Miniatures 

daffodils,  perhaps  on  their  way  from  some  Jer- 
sey farm  to  an  uptown  florist.  We  watched 
them  shining  and  trembling  across  the  street, 
where  he  loaded  them  onto  a  truck.  The  old 
gentleman's  eyes,  which  were  a  keen  gray  blue, 
caught  mine  as  we  both  turned  from  admiring 
the  flowers. 

I  don't  know  just  why  I  said  it,  but  they 
were  the  first  words  that  popped  into  my  head. 
**And  then  my  heart  with  pleasure  fills  and 
dances  with  the  daffodils,"  I  quoted. 

He  looked  at  me  a  little  quizzically. 

"You  imported  those  words  on  a  ship,"  he 
said.  "Why  don't  you  use  some  of  your  own 
instead  ?'* 

I  was  considerably  taken  aback.  "Why,  I 
don't  know,"  I  hesitated.  "They  just  came 
into  my  head." 

"Well,  I  call  that  bad  luck,"  he  said,  "when 
some  one  else's  words  come  into  a  man's  head 
instead  of  words  of  his  own.'* 

He  looked  about  him,  watching  the  scene  with 
rich  satisfaction.  "It's  good  to  see  all  this 
again,"  he  said.  "I  haven't  loafed  around  here 
for  going  on  thirty  years." 

"You've  been  out  of  town?"  I  asked. 

He  looked  at  me  with  a  steady  blue  eye  in 
which  there  was  something  of  humor  and  some- 
thing of  sadness. 

[287] 


Mince  Pie 

"Yes,  a  long  way  out.  I've  just  come  back 
to  see  how  the  Great  Idea  is  getting  along.  I 
thought  maybe  I  could  help  a  little." 

**The  Great  Idea.^"  I  queried^  puzzled. 

"The  value  of  the  individual,"  he  said.  "The 
necessity  for  every  human  being  to  be  able  to 
live,  think,  act,  dream,  pray  for  himself.  Now- 
adays I  believe  you  call  it  the  League  of  Na- 
tions. It's  the  same  thing.  Are  men  to  be  free 
to  decide  their  fate  for  themselves  or  are  they 
to  be  in  the  grasp  of  irresponsible  tyrants,  the 
hell  of  war,  the  cruelties  of  creeds,  executive 
deeds  just  or  unjust,  the  power  of  personality 
just  or  unjust?  What  are  your  poets,  your 
young  X-ibertads,  doing  to  bring  about  the 
Great  Idea  of  perfect  and  free  individuals?" 

I  was  rather  at  a  loss,  but  happily  he  did  not 
stay  for  an  answer.  Above  us  an  American  flag 
was  fluttering  on  a  staff,  showing  its  bright 
ribs  of  scarlet  clear  and  vivid  against  the  sky. 

"You  see  that  flag  of  stars,"  he  said,  "that 
thick-sprinkled  bunting?  I  have  seen  that  flag 
stagger  in  the  agony  of  threatened  dissolution, 
in  years  that  trembled  and  reeled  beneath  us. 
You  have  only  seen  it  in  the  days  of  its  easy, 
sure  triumphs.  I  tell  you,  now  is  the  day  for 
America  to  show  herself,  to  prove  her  dreams 
for  the  race.  But  who  is  chanting  the  poem 
that  comes  from  the  soul  of  America,  the  carol 
[288] 


Walt  Whitman  Miniatures 

of  victory?  Who  strikes  up  the  marches  of 
Libertad  that  shall  free  this  tortured  ship  of 
earth?  Democracy  is  the  destined  conqueror, 
yet  I  see  treacherous  lip-smiles  everywhere  and 
death  and  infidelity  at  every  step.  I  tell  you, 
now  is  the  time  of  battle,  now  the  time  of  striv- 
ing. I  am  he  who  tauntingly  compels  men, 
women,  nations,  crying,  *Leap  from  your  seats, 
and  contend  for  your  lives  !'  I  tell  you,  produce 
great  Persons;  the  rest  follows." 

"What  do  you  think  about  the  covenant  of  the 
League  of  Nations?"  I  asked.  He  looked  out 
over  the  river  for  some  moments  before  reply- 
ing and  then  spoke  slowly,  with  halting  utter- 
ance that  seemed  to  suffer  anguish  in  putting 
itself  into  words. 

"America  will  be  great  only  if  she  builds  for 
all  mankind,"  he  said.  "This  plan  of  the  great 
Libertad  leads  the  present  with  friendly  hand 
toward  the  future.  But  to  hold  men  together 
by  paper  and  seal  or  by  compulsion  is  no  ac- 
count. That  only  holds  men  together  which 
aggregates  all  in  a  living  principle,  as  the  hold 
of  the  limbs  of  the  body  or  the  fibers  of  plants. 
Does  this  plan  answer  universal  needs?  Can  it 
face  the  open  fields  and  the  seaside?  Will  it 
absorb  into  me  as  I  absorb  food,  air,  to  appear 
again  in  my  strength,  gait,  face?  Have  real 
employments   contributed  to   it — original  mak- 

[289] 


Mince  Pie 

ers,  not  mere  amanuenses?  I  think  so,  and 
therefore  I  say  to  you,  now  is  the  day  to  fight 
for  it/' 

"Well/*  he  said,  checking  himself,  "there's 
the  ferry  coming  in.  I'm  going  over  to  Camden 
to  have  a  look  around  on  my  way  back  to  Har- 
leigh." 

"I'm  afraid  you'll  find  Mickle  street  some- 
what changed,"  I  said,  for  by  this  time  I  knew 
him. 

"I  love  changes,"  he  said. 

"Your  centennial  comes  on  May  31,"  I  said. 
"I  hope  you  won't  be  annoyed  if  Philadelphia 
doesn't  pay  much  attention  to  it.  You  know 
how  things  are  around  here." 

"My  dear  boy,"  he  said,  "I  am  patient.  The 
proof  of  a  poet  shall  be  sternly  deferred  till  his 
country  absorbs  him  as  affectionately  as  he  has 
absorbed  it.  I  have  sung  the  songs  of  the  Great 
Idea  and  that  is  reward  in  itself.  I  have  loved 
the  earth,  sun,  animals,  I  have  despised  riches, 
I  have  given  alms  to  every  one  that  asked,  stood 
up  for  the  stupid  and  crazy,  devoted  my  income 
and  labor  to  others,  hated  tyrants,  argued  not 
concerning  God,  had  patience  and  indulgence 
toward  the  people,  taken  off  my  hat  to  nothing 
known  or  unknown,  gone  freely  with  powerful 
uneducated  persons  and  I  swear  I  begin  to  see 

the  meaning  of  these  things *' 

[290] 


Walt  Whitman  Miniatures 

"All  aboard!"  cried  the  man  at  the  gate  of 
the  ferry  house. 

He  waved  his  hand  with  a  benign  patriarchal 
gesture  and  was  gone. 


[291] 


ON  DOORS 

THE  opening  and  closing  of  doors  are  the 
most  significant  actions  of  man's  life. 
What  a  mystery  lies  in  doors! 

No  man  knows  what  awaits  him  when  he 
opens  a  door.  Even  the  most  familiar  room^ 
where  the  clock  ticks  and  the  hearth  glows  red 
at  dusk,  may  harbor  surprises.-  The  plumber 
may  actually  have  called  (while  you  were  out) 
and  fixed  that  leaking  faucet.  The  cook  may 
have  had  a  fit  of  the  vapors  and  demanded  her 
passports.  The  wise  man  opens  his  front  door 
with  humility  and  a  spirit  of  acceptance. 

Which  one  of  us  has  not  sat  in  some  ante- 
room and  watched  the  inscrutable  panels  of  a 
door  that  was  full  of  meaning?  Perhaps  you 
were  waiting  to  apply  for  a  job;  perhaps  you 
had  some  "deal"  you  were  ambitious  to  put 
over.  You  watched  the  confidential  stenog- 
rapher flit  in  and  out,  carelessly  turning  that 
mystic  portal  which,  to  you,  revolved  on  hinges 
of  fate.  And  then  the  young  woman  said,  "Mr. 
Cranberry  will  see  you  now."  As  you  grasped 
[292] 


On  Doors 

the  knob  the  thought  flashed^  "When  I  open  this 
door  again,  what  will  have  happened?" 

There  are  many  kinds  of  doors.  Revolving 
doors  for  hotels,  shops  and  public  buildings. 
These  are  typical  of  the  brisk,  bustling  ways  of 
modern  life.  Can  you  imagine  John  Milton  or 
William  Penn  skipping  through  a  revolving 
door?  Then  there  are  the  curious  little  slatted 
doors  that  still  swing  outside  denatured  bar- 
rooms and  extend  only  from  shoulder  to  knee. 
There  are  trapdoors,  sliding  doors,  double  doors, 
stage  doors,  prison  doors,  glass  doors.  But 
the  symbol  and  mystery  of  a  door  resides  in 
its  quality  of  concealment.  A  glass  door  is 
not  a  door  at  all,  but  a  window.  The  meaning 
of  a  door  is  to  hide  what  lies  inside;  to  keep  the 
heart  in  suspense. 

Also,  there  are  many  ways  of  opening  doors. 
There  is  the  cheery  push  of  elbow  with  which 
the  waiter  shoves  open  the  kitchen  door  when 
he  bears  in  your  tray  of  supper.  There  is  the 
suspicious  and  tentative  withdrawal  of  a  door 
before  the  unhappy  book  agent  or  peddler. 
There  is  the  genteel  and  carefully  modulated 
recession  with  which  footmen  swing  wide  the 
oaken  barriers  of  the  great.  There  is  the 
sympathetic  and  awful  silence  of  the  dentist's 
maid  who  opens  the   door   into   the   operating 

[293] 


Mince  Pie 

room  and,  without  speaking,  implies  that  the 
doctor  is  ready  for  you.  There  is  the  brisk 
cataclysmic  opening  of  a  door  when  the  nurse 
comes  in,  very  early  in  the  morning — "It's  a 
boy !" 

Doors  are  the  symbol  of  privacy,  of  retreat, 
of  the  mind's  escape  into  blissful  quietude  or 
sad  secret  struggle.  A  room  without  doors  is 
not  a  room,  but  a  hallway.  No  matter  where  he 
is,  a  man  can  make  himself  at  home  behind  a 
closed  door.  The  mind  works  best  behind 
closed  doors.  Men  are  not  horses  to  be  herded 
together.  Dogs  know  the  meaning  and  anguish 
of  doors.  Have  you  ever  noticed  a  puppy 
yearning  at  a  shut  portal?  It  is  a  symbol  of 
human  life. 

The  opening  of  doors  is  a  mystic  act:  it  has 
in  it  some  flavor  of  the  unknown,  some  sense  of 
moving  into  a  new  moment,  a  new  pattern  of 
the  human  rigmarole.  It  includes  the  highest 
glimpses  of  mortal  gladness:  reunions,  recon- 
ciliations, the  bliss  of  lovers  long  parted.  Even 
in  sadness,  the  opening  of  a  door  may  bring 
relief:  it  changes  and  redistributes  human 
forces.  But  the  closing  of  doors  is  far  more 
terrible.  It  is  a  confession  of  finality.  Every 
door  closed  brings  something  to  an  end.  And 
there  are  degrees  of  sadness  in  the  closing  of 
[294] 


On  Doors 

doors.  A  door  slammed  is  a  confession  of 
weakness.  A  door  gently  shut  is  often  the  most 
tragic  gesture  in  life.  Every  one  knows  the 
seizure  of  anguish  that  comes  just  after  the 
closing  of  a  door,  when  the  loved  one  is  still 
near,  within  sound  of  voice,  and  yet  already 
far  away. 

The  opening  and  closing  of  doors  is  a  part 
of  the  stern  fluency  of  life.  Life  will  not  stay 
still  and  let  us  alone.  We  are  continually  open- 
ing doors  with  hope,  closing  them  with  despair. 
Life  lasts  not  much  longer  than  a  pipe  of  to- 
bacco, and  destiny  knocks  us  out  like  the 
ashes. 

The  closing  of  a  door  is  irrevocable.  It 
snaps  the  packthread  of  the  heart.  It  is  no 
avail  to  reopen,  to  go  back.  Pinero  spoke  non- 
sense when  he  made  Paula  Tanqueray  say,  "The 
future  is  only  the  past  entered  through  another 
gate."  Alas,  there  is  no  other  gate.  When  the 
door  is  shut,  it  is  shut  forever.  There  is 
no  other  entrance  to  that  vanished  pulse  of 
time.  "The  moving  finger  writes,  and  having 
writ"— 

There  is  a  certain  kind  of  door-shutting  that 
will  come  to  us  all.  The  kind  of  door-shutting 
that  is  done  very  quietly,  with  the  sharp  click 
of  the  latch  to  break  the  stillness.     They  will 

[295] 


Mince  Pie 

think  then,  one  hopes,  of  our  unfulfilled  decen- 
cies rather  than  of  our  pluperfected  misdemean- 
ors.    Then  they  will  go  out  and  close  the  door. 


[296] 


Oil 

i9n 


